The country of Antigua and Barbuda is located in the centre of the Leeward Islands off the eastern Caribbean. The island of Antigua was formed by volcanoes and is the larger of the two islands (at 108 sq. miles), with Barbuda lying about 30 miles to the north. It was on Antigua that we would stay for the day.

A tiny bit of history about the island – Columbus landed on it in 1493 . The British colonised it in 1632. In the 18^th century it was the base for the British Royal Navy (Admiral Horatio Nelson has a strong influence on the architecture). Finally in 1981, Antigua gained independence.

Given we were in the Caribbean, it was blatantly obvious that we would be doing some kind of water based activity. In this case, it was a half day tour to snorkel with stingrays. This adventure meant a bus ride across to the other side of the island to a place aptly named 'Stingray City'.

The bus ride was interesting as we went through the island’s capital St. John’s and past the cricket stadium named after the only one of Antigua’s legendary people still living – Sir Viv Richards. It was a swish stadium that just happened to stand out in the middle of a grassy paddock, with very little surrounding it. Antiguans are devoted to the sport of cricket, with the island being home to Sir Richards, as well as Richie Richardson, Curtly Ambrose and Andy Roberts .

When we arrived at Stingray City, we got a quick briefing on the do’s and do not’s of swimming with the rays. The most important message (which I think reassured some people) was that the rays are unlikely to sting or stab you, unless you are harassing them and even then unless you are allergic to bees, it will hurt but you WILL survive. The other piece of advice that made people giggle was in relation to what happens if one decides to nibble on you – since they don’t have teeth but instead use suction to eat, we were told to not pull our hand/foot out of their mouth, but instead to enjoy the suction as they will eventually spit you out because you don’t taste nice. Briefing over, it was time to sign our lives away and get on our boats for the trip out to where our slimy yet muscular friends like to hang out.

The boat ride out was good, the sun was out, there were no waves and we got to zoom along like we were on a secret mission. We arrived at the mooring/pontoon within about 10 minutes and after putting on the rash vest and board shorts, and grabbing our snorkels, it was time to enter the water .

It was at this point that the failure of some people’s listening skills became apparent. One of the key instructions we were given was to climb down all four steps of the ladder and gently put our feet on the sand (just in case there was a stingray nearby). A couple of people went down a step or two but then decided to jump the rest of the way. Very naughty.

As soon as we got in the water, the rays started to swim around us. Given they are used to humans; they didn’t have any issues with swimming between people and on some occasions pushing us out of their way.

Now slightly better acclimatised to the idea of having them near us, we all hoped in a line to get our photo taken holding a stingray. I think the stingray was enjoying having its belly rubbed, as every time it swam away, it would come back and wait for the handler to hold it again.

Photo taken, we spent the rest of the time floating around watching them swim . Some people had a go at feeding them, while others went on a mini snorkel trip to see some fish and coral. After about 45 minutes at the site, it was time to head back to land. The boat ride back was just a pleasant as the ride out.

Things however started to get a little messy when we return back to shore. This is due to one thing… Rum punch. Given the Caribbean is crazy about rum, we knew that the punch would be deadly. People had the option of leaded (with rum) or unleaded (no rum), however I have a feeling that on the leaded was actually available. The punch was very strong and I thought you could only taste rum and no fruit punch. A couple of people found the run to be quite tasty as went back for seconds and judging by the joyfulness of the bus ride back, possibly thirds.

Having survived both the rum punch and the stingrays, it was time to retrace our steps back to St. John’s. Being a Sunday, there were very few shops open. However, it was reported that as it was in the middle of Carnival, there would be parade through town sometime during the day . Unfortunately, the expected time came and went without a parade being seen.

Our attempt of finding somewhere to have lunch was ok. We eventually found a bar with a couple of free seats that was also serving food (it was one of the few places open in town and as such was quite popular). After waiting 45 minutes for our food to arrive, we were slightly refreshed and continued our random wandering around the town.

As we were making our way back to the ship, the clouds that had been hanging around started to close in and it started to rain. It wasn’t a heavy rain, but it was enough to put the kybosh on people’s activities and there was a rush to get back on board. Given the rain only lasted a couple of minutes, we were in the dock area anyway and there was now a queue to get back on board, we decided to take a couple of last minute photos and utilise the cold cloths that were being handed out – quite a refreshing thing those cold cloths and a brilliant idea.

Back on board, there was time for a quick cat nap while we waited for the ship to be ready to depart. Once we were ready to depart, it was time to head out to the front of the ship to take our sail away photos and say farewell to another country.

Fun fact:
Antigua has 365 beaches – one for every day of the year.