Another day, another Island. We arrived in St John’s and transported to Stingray City, along the way, our guide told us about Antigua, life there, economics, politics and lifestyle.
We arrived at Stingray City where we were met by our guide who gave us a talk about the Stingrays, the do’s and the don’ts and gave us snorkelling gear and we signed our disclaimers and boarded the boat which took us 10 minutes or so to where the Stingrays were.
The water was clear and warm, the skies were blue and plenty of stingrays were swimming by.
Astonishingly, the larger stingrays were female and the smaller ones were male. They swam past us, tickling our legs like a cat would, but the feeling was more bristly! I had my snorkel and looked in the water, what a feeling to see these floating stingrays drifting towards you and they were playful. They are bottom feeders so their mouth is underneath and their eyes are on top.
I held one, it was great fun, I was a little scared but it was a great experience. Underneath them, their skin was spotty and soft but felt a bit like the consistency of calamari!
I enjoyed it at Stingray City, it wasn’t over commercialised, the staff were lovely and good fun. We had a couple of hours with the Stingrays, took the boat back out to the Stingray City, had showers, had a rum punch and you could buy a photograph for $15 if you wished, I brought a waterproof camera holder which did the trick, photographs were good!
We were greeted by our guide, went back into Saint John’s and meandered around the shops. There were shops selling local handmade goods, hot sauce and I bought myself a lovely teal coverup.
We had lunch in Cuties, a Carribean restaurant, I had coconut prawns which were delicious and so tasty accompanied with a frozen Mango Margarita with local Antiguan rum.
