Monos — Island for relaxation

Poaching is still threatening turtles in the Bocas. My Coast Guard acquaintance told me that in the course of a regular patrol he’d had occasion to question men on Chacachacare claiming they were "helping" a turtle who had come up on the beach to lay her eggs . . .

Monos is so-called for the Red Howler monkeys the Spanish found on the island — but not for long. With so little fruit and almost no water the monkeys disappeared, giving place to a few fishermen who eked out a living from the sea for the next couple of hundred years.

It was King Cotton that attracted the first serious settlers to Monos. To begin with settlers from Martinique and Guadeloupe had no proper title, but the profits in cotton were worth the risk in clearing and planting the land. In 1791 Governor Chacon gave control of Monos to the Cabildo, so allowing them to collect rents from those already there and lease lands to settlers to plant more cotton.

The Tardieu family and the Dehers were the main growers; however, there were some free coloured families owning a few slaves also growing cotton.

Until the market collapsed, cotton was the mainstay of the island, the leaves of the cotton plant being distasteful to the bachacs and soldier ants that made life miserable and difficult for small landholders scratching a living from fishing and "gardens."

When cotton gave way to whaling on all three of the Bocas islands the Dehers, already, it seems, a family with a tradition of boat-building, kept body and soul together building and repairing whalers, and building small fishing pirogues. Then, when whaling, too, collapsed in the late nineteenth century the family migrated to Trinidad.

The Tardieu family arrived in 1780 and obtained a grant of land in Naparima. In 1796 Honor? Tardieu leased land to grow cotton on Monos and begin the long association of the Tardieu name with Monos. The Tardieus were famous fishermen, their skills on the water were legendary, their courage saved many from drowning.

Fr de Verteuil notes that in November 1874 a storm capsized a boat bringing produce from Toco to Port-of-Spain. Charles Jean Baptiste Tardieu, who was out in his boat sheltering in a bay, noticed sacks of cocoa floating, realised there had been a shipwreck and sallied forth to rescue five persons clinging to the rocks. He battled the waves but wasn’t able to rescue them until his brothers, Joseph, Victor and Ernest, wondering what had befallen him, rowed out to look for him; when they reached him, at great risk to their lives, all four managed to rescue three men, a woman and a girl.

When cotton and whaling declined, so did the population of the Bocas islands.

Those who stayed formed a united community. Superintendent of Prisons, Percy Fraser, in his unpublished biography describes a traditional dance on Monos in the 1880s "The boatmen from other bays came along with the female members of their families and their drums and ‘Shac Shacs,’ and danced the ‘Belle Air.’ This was a native dance and the airs were also native and in patois’." In fact in those days all the people of Monos spoke patois.

Nevertheless, it was a dying community as the young migrated to Trinidad in search of greener pastures. Those left became boatmen and caretakers for the holiday homes springing up in the bays facing the Gulf. A few held out in Maurice Bay and Grand Fond catching crabs in the swamps and fishing; a small fishing community survives at the head of Maurice Bay to this day.

As whaling declined, the well-to-do in Port-of-Spain leased land from the town council to build holiday homes; the entrepreneurs in the health business erected convalescent homes, others scented a business opportunity in renting out holiday accommodation for local tourists.

By 1880 there were so many holiday homes "Down the Islands" that Government began a regular steamer service. Previously the only transport was by rowboat or pirogue; the return fare was $4 for a minimum of two persons, and one shilling and sixpence for three or more plus one shilling and threepence an hour waiting time. Those in a hurry paid double for two boatmen (four oars) instead of two.

Travelling to and from the islands by steamer was something of an adventure. The island steamers were flat-bottomed river boats with two decks, the upper, equipped with deck chairs for cabin passengers, the lower for steerage and cargo (Wednesdays being visiting day at the leprosarium, the lower deck was full of relatives carrying gifts and parcels of food to patients on Chacachacare).

The steamers did not dock at a pier or jetty; passengers and cargo were met by pirogues and had to step from the steamer to the boat (and vice versa). This could be difficult on a windy day with the pirogue bumping against the sides of the steamer.

Adrian Camps Campins notes that up to the 1920s it was de rigueur for cabin passengers to be properly dressed in coat, tie and hat for the gentlemen, and long dress for the ladies. Steamers carried mail and cargo as well as passengers. Passage for pigs, goats and sheep cost 12 cents, and dogs 24 cents. The fare for towing rowboats was $1.20.

Speed seems to have been of the essence in unloading cargo. Fr de Verteuil tells of one occasion, an 100 pound block of ice was tossed into a pirogue, crashed straight through the hull and left passengers and ice floating in the Gulf.

Government subsidised the steamers (as they do for the Tobago ferry today) but objected to the expense and in 1885 threatened to stop the service. Homeowners petitioned Government, on the grounds the houses were needed as health resorts – which, in days when malaria was rampant, was not unreasonable. Government relented. The steamer service continued even though there were serious accidents and shipwrecks.

The steamer service "Down The Islands" left from the St Vincent Jetty every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, calling at Carenage, the Five Islands, Carrera, Gaspar Grande, Teteron, Monos, Huevos and Chacachacare. (Other days were for the Cedros run). The steamer service came to an end in the 1950s as more and more boatmen bought outboard motors and the well-to-do owned power boats as well as island homes.

However, in days before CDs, tape decks and gramophones, the rich might hire a whole orchestra to entertain guests in a luxury holiday home on Monos. Waiters, fully dressed waded into the sea carrying trays of drinks to guests standing chatting in shallow waters.

In 1942, during World War II, the North East and South West of Monos were leased to the Americans who cleared mangrove, built barracks and constructed a jeep road to the heights where they set up four 155 mm guns. Those who climb the heights of Monos can still see the gun emplacements, although the guns that never fired a shot in combat, have long since vanished. A large gun was also mounted on the steamer Lady Hollis; luckily it was never fired for, it’s believed, the recoil would have sunk the vessel.

In the rainy season homeowners caught water off their roofs to store in concrete cisterns (see photo) but during long, severe dry seasons fresh water was a problem that was only solved in the 1930s with the introduction of a water barge, however, the service wasn’t exactly cheap. At today’s prices a minimum delivery of 13,440 gallons cost around $3,296; however, with the advent of the yachting industry, island homeowners are investing between $40,000 and $50,000 in "watermakers" – package water desalination and treatment plants originally developed for use in ocean-going yachts.

Monos today is an island for rest and relaxation away from the hustle and bustle of life in Port-of-Spain – on weekdays – and, perhaps, extended family and friend rum-punch fetes on weekends, plus a little fishing as the spirit moves . . .

Next week Gaspar Grande.