Day 6 – St. Johns, Antigua

We landed here-ish...

Which is roughly here!

Our Sting Ray swim tour was to meet at 8:00, so it was an early morning.  After a quick breakfast, we jumped the bus and headed across the island to the site, while hearing various trivia bits about Antigua and Barbuda, a two-island nation.  They don’t really pronounce the U, so it’s just “Antiga”.  Before a recent hurricane, Barbuda had 2000 residents, but after, there were only 1000.  Antigua has almost 100K people, and the island is about 100 square miles, about 3 times the 35 square miles of Barbuda (if memory serves).

Rainbow?

We jumped a boat and headed out to a pontoon base on a sand bar in the sea.  The water was very shallow, so we could easily stand with the water about mid-abdomen high.  Even on arrival, we saw dark spots moving around as the sting rays circled, almost waiting for us!!  Once in, the support group fanned out and let us hold a sting ray, feed a sting ray, etc with a picture.  After some of the chaos died down, we did both hold one and fed one, which was very weird!!  They sort of suck it up into their mouth, so, you hold the large squid barely in a fist, and they swim up and …it’s gone!  Holding it is a little different.  Since the sting rays lay at the bottom, under the sand, for rest, being supported by outstretched arms isn’t awkward for them, and they relax a bit (if you do!).  That was strange for us.  Their eyes are on top and they seem to be looking at you while you’re looking at them and holding them.  We got some great video, but it needs a little bit of editing as…well, it’s a lot of rays and a lot of butts and legs.  So, we’ll trim it down and make a video for later.

Hi!!

It was busy with Stingrays, fish, and people!

After the tour, we were happy and tired.  We took a shower and then a nap, and then had lunch.  We planned to get a little work done, the WiFi was down for maintenance, so we watched a movie instead.  Before we knew it, it was afternoon, and time for trivia!  Our team won!!  Yay!!  (We seem to be setting ourselves up for disappointment!)

There was a local band that came aboard to play Calypso music and we listened to that a bit before heading to dinner.  We joined a couple, and started talking.  They are a really nice couple.  After some storytelling, we discovered that he worked for AA in Chicago back in ’79-80.  After dinner, we went to the show, which was a couple that does a magic show together.  They were really funny and entertaining!!  We had a great time!  But, it’s been a long day and we’re ready for bed!