Sunday 2nd February 2025No rush today and after a nice lay-in I popped to the local supermarket for some bits before breakfast, and it became obvious neither of us showed any inclination to venture out today; so let’s stay-in. Today we talked about our respective bucket lists and what to do, and where to visit in the future; no conclusions, just work in progress; watch this space!!
Strangely the day flew past in-spite of doing nothing, well nearly nothing as Christine also caught up with the ironing and I wrote up some logs!!! The bottom line is we have decided we are “Antigua’d out”, though we are still enjoying this break, after all we have been coming here, on-and-off since 2006.
This evening we decided to start to watch the latest serries of Silent Witness on the iPad, we did the first two episodes.
Monday 3rd February 2025
Today we are definitely going to the beach and after debating the merits of various beaches, decided to head to Carlisle bay. We have fond memories of this beach, especially with Douglas back in 2006 and more recently with Jersey Jane in 2020.
With time running out and our five weeks is drawing to an end, we still have quite a lot of food left in the freezer that has to be eaten. Today we made a couple of chicken rolls for our lunch, we can buy the beer out!!!
We arrived at the beach just before midday and to our surprise there is now a beach-bar, the “South Beach Restaurant” that offers a complete service, including “toilets” and a “sort” of a shower, very useful. We headed straight in for a couple of beers and get the “low-down” on this place. Apparently it is very new, only been opened for 4-months and apart from the bar, offers a variety of hot, mainly local dishes. We were offered Goat curry, Jerk Chicken and Bean Curry to name just a few; another time, just the beers for now. They also rented out the beach loungers with fixed wooden sun-shades but they wanted $30US , so we declined explaining we were not going to be here that long, anyway after much banter, confusing the server, she eventually told us to take two and she’d talk to her boss about a lower rate later. We took that and left!!
Enjoying our chicken rolls on the sun-loungers, under the large sun-shade looking out to the bay was as good as it gets and if we get away without paying for these facilities, even better. Whilst this was going on, there was a “bunch” of Americans next to us, probably from a cruise ship and the two men went off snorkelling. I thought they were wasting their time as overnight we had big winds and a lot of rain so the sea was going to be “murky” and not long after going in, they were coming out. “How was it” I asked, “rubbish” came back followed by “can’t see a dam thing”; no surprise and Christine put hers gear away.
The one good thing about this beach is the lack of a shelf as you walk into the sea but today we had some rather large waves, so it was a question of timing as they came in threes, followed be a quiet period then they re-appeared; strange🤫🤫. We stayed in for some time but there was some cloud about causing a chill wind so had to keep under until we eventually had enough. Now the timing was essential to get out un-scathed by the three “nasty” waves which we both did, effortlessly in the end. We now dried off under the sun on our free (so far) loungers.
Time for a beer so headed back to the bar hopefully without getting caught to pay for the beach equipment, I even saw the same lady as before but this time had to pay a man in charge of the till, “the boss” perhaps??? Back to Christine, had we got away with it??,fingers crossed as this is now our challenge.
We stayed around for a another hour or so before departing, but what to do with my empty bottle. I couldn’t just leave it but was worried if I took into the bar I’d be asked for $30!! I noticed at this end of the building a big blue bin but next to that a table full of empty bottles; problem solved.
Back in the car having conquered our challenge, off we went. Our run back took is back along the “Rivera” route but we stopped for a few moments to cast our eyes over “Morris Bay”, thinking this will be tomorrow’s destination.
A pleasant drive back in the late afternoon sun “and” we passed a few areas where roadworks were happening, at last there’re attacking some of the dreadful pot-holes.
Christine had raided the freezer and produced an excellent risotto,I wonder why we go out??? No crib tonight as we are attacking Silent Witness again.