Day of snorkelling and sailing around the island
World, Dec 07, 2009
Wow, my final day! Talk about a trip getting over sooner than it started! And compared to other European places, I had some period of adjustment to Grenada and now that I was adjusted, it was time to go!
The last day was planned to be the most relaxed but also the “busiest” in terms of agenda. I’d booked myself for a day of sailing and snorkelling, and was quite excited for it. The van picked me up by 845am, had a bunch of folks from various hotels (all Brits… AGAIN!), and we reached Port Louis around 9am ready for our sail.
The whole process was really peaceful – we set sail by 915am and were on the ocean even 1 hour into the sail. I was growing a bit impatient (”when do we start snorkelling?”) but I thought what the heck, might as well enjoy the sail. It was a beautiful feeling – the wind, breeze, the sunshine, I was lying in the front deck getting a good suntan. At around 12 noon, we reached our first stop for snorkelling where we snorkelled for about 45 minutes. It wasn’t so much the snorkelling that had the WOW factor for me, but it was the fact that I got to use my new waterproof Canon case to shoot underwater. My gosh it’s brilliant! Talk about my new best friend….! But the snorkelling itself was wonderful. It wasn’t so much the blue waters, but the corals underneath. It was so clear, so beautiful.
Lunch was served on the boat… and true to Grenadian weather, it started raining during lunch. But that lasted for about 30 minutes, enough for us to finish our heavy lunch and water it down with some Caribbean rum punch (nice, but too strong nutmeg flavour, I’m sorry).
Our second spot was a bit more dramatic – there’s an underwater sculpture gallery here that was designed by a British tourist about 2-3 years ago. It’s amazing. I mean, how they make those exhibits and put them underwater. There are scattered in about 4-5 places, our guide kind of swam us through each of those. I was amazed at how well he remembers the locations underwater. My favourite was the circle of life, followed by “man on a bicycle”. Both excellent works of art.
After the 2nd spot, we headed back to Port louis. Had a nice relaxing nap on the boat, chatted with the fellow passengers who were telling me tales of various other countries they’ve visited in the Caribbean, their favourites, etc. Reached Port Louis and was dropped back to the hotel by 5pm. I went to the beach, and then to Spiceland Mall to have a lovely papaya-peanut shake. I must make a comment on how friendly and trustworthy people are. For some stupid reason, I’d forgotten my cash in the hotel room and just had my credit cards. The lady @ the juice stand doesn’t take credit cards (my bad, should’ve checked before I ordered) and so when I told her I didn’t have any money (well only about 4 EC$), she didn’t charge me a penny more and still gave me the drink! The milkshake was fab, as expected.
I made some last min purchases @ Spiceland Mall (well nutmeg jam, oil and cream for myself, LOL!) and had dinner for the last time at Sapphire. I’d really become good friends with the owner Bernadatte who’s a sweetheart. We chatted for a long time, then I caught a bit of the MNF game (Packers and Ravens) before heading back to my room around 10pm. I had sorta…already packed so caught some BBC World and went to bed by 1030pm. The alarm was set for 430am the next day.
Written by Vacations MAX for Jamaica Tours