Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

From bi­cy­cle fish ven­dors and Sun­day fam­i­ly gath­er­ings to de­mands for bet­ter roads, fish­ing fa­cil­i­ties and coastal pro­tec­tion, Car­li Bay’s sto­ry is one of re­silience, tra­di­tion and the en­dur­ing spir­it of its peo­ple.

Along the shores of Car­li Bay, where fish­ing boats re­turn with their dai­ly catch and fam­i­lies gath­er to en­joy the sea breeze, the mem­o­ries of a once close-knit com­mu­ni­ty re­main deeply root­ed in the lives of those who call it home.

For gen­er­a­tions, this coastal vil­lage in cen­tral Trinidad has been more than a fish­ing set­tle­ment. It has been a place of liveli­hood, re­li­gious de­vo­tion, recre­ation and shared ex­pe­ri­ences.

To­day, how­ev­er, Car­li Bay faces the chal­lenge of pre­serv­ing its her­itage while con­fronting the de­mands of mod­ern de­vel­op­ment.

For Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Coun­cil­lor Al­lan “Taxi” Seep­er­sad, who was born and raised in the com­mu­ni­ty, the trans­for­ma­tion is both per­son­al and pro­found.

“I born and grow in the com­mu­ni­ty of Car­li Bay,” he re­called, re­flect­ing on child­hood mem­o­ries of a vil­lage where neigh­bours looked out for one an­oth­er and fam­i­lies de­pend­ed heav­i­ly on the sea.

“The fish­er­men, those days, didn’t have ve­hi­cles. They had box­cars, where they have the bi­cy­cle ... with a lit­tle box be­hind it.”

Fresh­ly caught fish would be packed in ice and trans­port­ed along vil­lage roads, where fish­er­men sold their catch to house­holds and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

It was an era when hard work, de­ter­mi­na­tion and sim­ple liv­ing formed the foun­da­tion of fam­i­ly life.

Many of those fish­ing fam­i­lies would even­tu­al­ly see their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren en­ter pro­fes­sions once con­sid­ered be­yond their reach.

“To­day, there is doc­tors and lawyers and en­gi­neers and so on, bet­ter­ment to the com­mu­ni­ty,” Seep­er­sad said proud­ly.

When the vil­lage

was one fam­i­ly

Be­yond its fish­ing her­itage, Car­li Bay was a place where fam­i­ly gath­er­ings were an im­por­tant part of com­mu­ni­ty life.

Sun­day morn­ings of­ten be­gan with the prepa­ra­tion of dhalpuri, cur­ry chick­en and oth­er tra­di­tion­al meals be­fore fam­i­lies made their way to the wa­ter­front.

Some trav­elled in fish­er­men’s vans, while oth­ers walked along the road car­ry­ing bas­kets filled with food and re­fresh­ments.

“Some­times we walk down the road and we hold in the bas­ket and all. We’re hap­py to go down the road,” Seep­er­sad re­mem­bered.

Chil­dren spent hours swim­ming near the old jet­ty, play­ing along the shore­line and en­joy­ing the sim­ple plea­sures of vil­lage life.

But for Seep­er­sad, what made those days mem­o­rable was not the beach it­self, but the re­la­tion­ships that ex­ist­ed among res­i­dents.

“Those days the com­mu­ni­ty was more clos­er,” he re­flect­ed.

“In this so­ci­ety to­day we’re too busy.”

His ob­ser­va­tion cap­tures a con­cern shared by many old­er res­i­dents of tra­di­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties, where chang­ing lifestyles have grad­u­al­ly re­placed the spon­ta­neous gath­er­ings and neigh­bourly re­la­tion­ships that once de­fined vil­lage life.

A his­to­ry shaped by sea and sug­ar

Car­li Bay’s de­vel­op­ment is close­ly con­nect­ed to the wider his­to­ry of Cou­va and cen­tral Trinidad.

Dur­ing the nine­teenth and twen­ti­eth cen­turies, sug­ar es­tates helped shape sur­round­ing set­tle­ments, while In­di­an in­den­ture­ship con­tributed to the re­gion’s cul­tur­al and re­li­gious tra­di­tions.

Fish­ing be­came a sig­nif­i­cant liveli­hood along the Gulf of Paria, pro­vid­ing an eco­nom­ic foun­da­tion for fam­i­lies who lived near the coast­line.

The de­vel­op­ment of the Point Lisas in­dus­tri­al es­tate from the 1970s trans­formed the wider area, in­tro­duc­ing new em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and chang­ing the phys­i­cal land­scape.

The clo­sure of Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed in 2003 brought fur­ther eco­nom­ic and so­cial changes to cen­tral Trinidad.

Yet de­spite these trans­for­ma­tions, Car­li Bay re­tained its iden­ti­ty as a fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty and an im­por­tant des­ti­na­tion for re­li­gious and recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

A wa­ter­front in need

of at­ten­tion

To­day, the com­mu­ni­ty faces chal­lenges that ex­tend be­yond nos­tal­gia.

The con­di­tion of ac­cess roads, in­ad­e­quate drainage, coastal main­te­nance and the need for im­proved fish­ing fa­cil­i­ties have re­mained con­cerns.

Seep­er­sad ac­knowl­edged that while de­vel­op­ment has tak­en place, fur­ther im­prove­ments are nec­es­sary.

“We have the fish mar­ket...we have the roads. It needs some up­grad­ing,” he said.

He be­lieves the seafront has greater po­ten­tial as a fam­i­ly-friend­ly des­ti­na­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly if its recre­ation­al ar­eas are im­proved.

“We have ar­eas where they could do some work,” he ex­plained, ex­press­ing the hope that suit­able sec­tions of the shore­line could be re­stored for pub­lic en­joy­ment.

He re­called the days when res­i­dents could com­fort­ably bathe near the old jet­ty and iden­ti­fied the need for safer, clean­er ar­eas where chil­dren and fam­i­lies could once again en­joy the wa­ter­front.

“Where the chil­dren and any­one could go down and take a lit­tle duck,” he said.

The coun­cil­lor al­so point­ed to ar­eas af­fect­ed by slush and the need for bet­ter en­vi­ron­men­tal up­keep.

His con­cerns come against the back­drop of wider ef­forts to ad­dress Car­li Bay’s en­vi­ron­men­tal dif­fi­cul­ties.

In Au­gust 2026, the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion be­gan clean-up op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing com­plaints about il­le­gal dump­ing, an is­sue af­fect­ing ac­cess to the wa­ter­front and its ap­peal as a recre­ation­al des­ti­na­tion.

En­vi­ron­men­tal agen­cies have al­so iden­ti­fied man­grove degra­da­tion and coastal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty as im­por­tant con­cerns.

For fish­ing fam­i­lies, these chal­lenges are par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant be­cause the coast­line re­mains both their work­place and their eco­nom­ic life­line.

Faith and tra­di­tion re­main

De­spite its chang­ing land­scape, Car­li Bay con­tin­ues to serve as an im­por­tant cen­tre for re­li­gious ob­ser­vances.

Dur­ing the Hin­du month of Kar­tik, devo­tees gath­er near the sea to of­fer prayers and par­tic­i­pate in re­li­gious bathing cer­e­monies.

Seep­er­sad re­mem­bers a time when fam­i­lies trav­elled to­geth­er for these oc­ca­sions, with re­fresh­ments dis­trib­uted to wor­ship­pers and chil­dren ea­ger­ly wait­ing for their share.

To­day, re­li­gious gath­er­ings re­main an im­por­tant part of the com­mu­ni­ty’s iden­ti­ty.

The wa­ter­front al­so con­tin­ues to at­tract fam­i­lies dur­ing East­er and oth­er hol­i­days.

“If you go down there on East­er, you will see fel­las have their tents,” Seep­er­sad said, de­scrib­ing vis­i­tors cook­ing, lis­ten­ing to mu­sic and spend­ing week­ends along the coast.

Pre­serv­ing the next chap­ter

For Car­li Bay, the chal­lenge is to en­sure that de­vel­op­ment ben­e­fits the peo­ple who de­pend on the wa­ter­front while pre­serv­ing its cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal im­por­tance.

Im­proved in­fra­struc­ture, stronger en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and suit­able recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties could help re­store its ap­peal.

But phys­i­cal de­vel­op­ment alone can­not re­place the com­mu­ni­ty spir­it that shaped gen­er­a­tions.

For Seep­er­sad, Car­li Bay’s past of­fers a re­minder of what can be achieved when neigh­bours work to­geth­er and com­mu­ni­ties take pride in their sur­round­ings.

And as the tide con­tin­ues to wash against the old shore­line, the mem­o­ries of bi­cy­cle fish ven­dors, Sun­day pic­nics and re­li­gious gath­er­ings re­main part of its en­dur­ing iden­ti­ty.

Car­li Bay is not sim­ply a place where fish­er­men launch their boats or fam­i­lies spend their week­ends. It is a com­mu­ni­ty built on sac­ri­fice, faith and to­geth­er­ness - one de­ter­mined to en­sure that its his­to­ry is not lost to the chang­ing tide.