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Ahhh….beautiful Antigua water. Nice! The Mariner docked in Antigua early today and before we knew it we had sipped our lattes and were heading out for a combination kayak/snorkeling trip. We had originally signed up for a 50 minute helicopter tour of Monserrat (an active volcano that just erupted sometime over the last two weeks!) but, due to the numerous disasters that have followed us on this trip and, the rumors of Russian helicopters being used and, based on the advice of an ex-Boeing executive we had dinner with recently, we decided to save the $600 (and maybe our lives!) and turn in those tour tickets and go kayaking and snorkeling instead.
We headed out of the port area in a small air conditioned bus with a knowledgeable driver who also acted as our tour guide. The drive took us through the crowded downtown area and then out across the island’s countryside. Our destination was a casual beachfront staging area complete with picnic tables, restrooms, monkey cages (which housed monkeys with long white fangs), bird cages (pretty and noisy parakeets, cockatiels and parrots) and even an iguana cage. We had a brief orientation session, selected the appropriate fins and then boarded powerboats for the ride to the kayak docks. The ride out was nice but a little bit bumpy and we were relieved when we saw the kayak dock in a quiet lagoon surrounded by mangrove trees.
We boarded our two-man kayaks and headed out across the beautiful, calm lagoon. Margaret and I were fast (just ask me, I’ll tell you!) pushing ourselves hard to move our kayak along quickly over the water. I looked at it as my morning workout and she wasn’t bad herself, providing the turbocharger when we were in danger of being passed. We scooted along in between the mangroves, seeing some small fish and even small jellyfish. The guide took us to an area where he grabbed some sea cucumbers and explained how they live here in the lagoon. With a name like “sea cucumber” you’d expect they were a vegetable…but they are actually a living breathing animal. They look like a “cucumber” hence the name. This areas is only a few feet deep but you have to watch out for spiny sea urchins if you stand up on the sand (we opted to stay in our kayak!). After paddling around for about 45 minutes we returned to the cleverly designed, two kayak deep dock and re-boarded the boats for a short ride over to Bird Island.
At Bird Island those opting to stay on shore with the rum punch cooler did so and the rest of us were taken about 1,500 feet offshore to the snorkel area. The current was pretty strong so some of the snorkelers ended up going back to the boat. The rest of us swam around for a while checking out the area and then swam to shore. Margaret chose to be in the rum punch party group on shore. Of course, I was the first back to shore and was happy to indulge in the rum punch and cookie snacks on the beach and some of the group took a hike up to the top of the hill and had a great view of the overall area.
We took the boat ride back to the resort area and were again treated to rum punch! And this wasn’t just any rum punch…this was really good (and strong) rum punch! We showered, dried off and put on some cover-ups and, as you can imagine, by the time they herded us back into the bus we were all quite jovial – Margaret even started a rousing round of “100 bottles of beer on the wall” with most joining in (I missed that video…). It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that one! All in all it was a great time. By the way, we heard the helicopter tour was very good with great views of the destruction caused by the latest eruption – maybe we’ll do that one next time.
Back on board the Mariner we had a beautiful send-off for the 65 day South American cruisers — they brought us out on the front of the ship and threw us a sail away party! We had a great time!
Antigua Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Antigua-Mar-12-2010/25178900_F6pSKR#!i=2065356069&k=DB25Rmj