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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Fam­i­ly makes ma­jor tourism in­vest­ment

Thank you, Buccoo

by

2293 days ago
20190329

Eighty-five years ago, Sul­li­van Dil­lon, now de­ceased, had a vi­sion. A hum­ble man with mea­gre means, he left Buc­coo, To­ba­go, to work in Cu­ba in the cat­tle ranch­es and then Pana­ma on the Pana­ma Canal.

His name is well known in the vil­lage of Buc­coo and men­tioned among the great To­bag­o­ni­ans who dared to strive de­spite the odds.

As the sto­ry goes, Dil­lon saved funds from his work­ing ex­ploits with a spe­cif­ic pur­pose in mind; to buy a piece of land and raise a fam­i­ly.

He re­turned to To­ba­go, mar­ried Mar­il­da from Pa­tience Hill, had six chil­dren with her and used those funds to in­vest in a piece of land on the Buc­coo sea coast. From it, there is a clear, ex­ot­ic view of the Buc­coo Reef, Ny­lon Pool and the Buc­coo Bay.

His chil­dren—Car­los Dil­lon, Dr Maria Dil­lon-Re­my, Win­ston Dil­lon, Miri­am Dil­lon-Foder­ing­ham, An­gelique Dil­lon and Mar­i­lyn Dil­lon— are now all well known with­in To­ba­go’s so­cial land­scape ac­cord­ing to Gas­ton Foder­ing­ham, Sul­li­van’s son-in-law who has been mar­ried to Miri­am for the past 43 years.

Foder­ing­ham told To­ba­go To­day the en­ter­pris­ing Sul­li­van was one of the first peo­ple to take vis­i­tors to the Buc­coo Reef and Ny­lon Pool for a fee. He al­so prac­tised con­ser­va­tion and taught the young­sters from the vil­lage how to pre­serve the crea­tures of the sea.

Foder­ing­ham, a med­ical doc­tor since 1987, said: “Many of the vil­lagers who still take vis­i­tors on the reef, were ful­ly taught by him (Sul­li­van).

“Sul­li­van told them nev­er to take tur­tles when they are lay­ing their eggs or when they have their young and if fish is not of the right size, put it back in­to the sea.”

The sto­ry of Sul­li­van’s per­se­ver­ance and vi­sion, as told to To­ba­go To­day, spoke of the an­ces­tor telling his chil­dren that there is gold in Buc­coo.

“My fa­ther used to say gold is in the rich­es of the sea and land and in­vest­ing in it. Gold is in Buc­coo,” Win­ston Dil­lon, a for­mer teacher, re­called.

It’s this vi­sion, passed on from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, which has re­sult­ed in the Dil­lon fam­i­ly mak­ing a “sig­nif­i­cant” in­vest­ment - the biggest and ar­guably the best tourist fa­cil­i­ty over­look­ing the Buc­coo Beach and jet­ty. It’s lo­cat­ed on the land Sul­li­van bought 85 years ago. The fa­cil­i­ty hous­es a wed­ding re­cep­tion hall and sev­en ex­ec­u­tive suites.

Asked why the in­vest­ment was com­ing now, at a time when tourism stake­hold­ers are cry­ing about the state of the in­dus­try, Foder­ing­ham echoed the words of Hil­lel the El­der, a Jew­ish leader from the first cen­tu­ry.

“If not now, then when, and if not us, then who?”

The Dil­lon fam­i­ly paired with Foder­ing­ham, who feels the project is a man­i­fes­ta­tion of Sul­li­van’s vi­sion.

They are thank­ful for lessons their an­ces­tor learnt in Buc­coo and have apt­ly named the new tourist fa­cil­i­ty ‘Mer­ci Buc­coo’. Trans­lat­ed in Eng­lish it means: “Thank you, Buc­coo.”


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