Buccoo Reef and Nylon Pool

Buccoo Reef is Tobago's best-known marine site, a protected complex of coral flats off the island's south-west corner visited by glass-bottom boats that run from the nearby beaches. The standard trip drifts over the reef, then stops at the Nylon Pool - a shallow sandbar in the middle of the sea where the water is warm, waist deep and clear over white sand, a genuinely strange place to stand a kilometre offshore. Local legend gives the pool youth-restoring properties. Ashore in Buccoo village, Sunday School is the island's long-running weekly street party of steelpan and soca that starts in the evening and runs late.

What you actually see

• Glass-bottom reef trips - coral and fish viewed without getting in.
• The Nylon Pool - standing waist-deep on a sandbar offshore.
• Buccoo Sunday School - the village's weekly steelpan and soca street party.
• Pigeon Point - the iconic thatched jetty beach nearby.

When to go

The dry season from January to May gives the clearest water and calmest boat conditions. Sunday School runs every week year round. Goat racing at Buccoo, an unusual Easter tradition, falls the Tuesday after Easter.

Honest expectations

The reef has suffered from years of boat anchoring, bleaching and runoff, and does not match its historic reputation - manage expectations and choose operators who follow marine park rules. Standing on coral is prohibited and damaging. Trips are short and sold hard on the beaches; agree price and duration first. Sunday School is genuinely fun but gets very crowded and loud.

Nearby

Pigeon Point, Store Bay and the Tobago Main Ridge forest reserve inland.