Barada - Carlisle Bay overnight...to Jolly Harbour anchorage 17 04.56N 061 53.59W

Carlisle Bay overnight...to Jolly Harbour anchorage 17 04.56N 061 53.59W

Barada

Paul Downie

Tue 5 Feb 2008 22:15

After 3 days of scuba-diving at Indian Creek Point and Sunken Rock the weather deteriorated with higher Easterly winds, squalls and a disturbed sea-state, so we weighed anchor on Monday 4th and headed south towards Old Road Bluff Point. Just behind this Point we poked Barada's bow into Carlisle Bay and found it quite calm (tho still windy) so anchored off the palm-tree fringed beach. An expensive resort of the same name occupies half of the bay - to the western end in contrast is the Antiguan village of Old Road with its wooden houses wedged up on breezeblocks. We stopped in a store for a snack and purchased some beers in another, the locals are always friendly and pleased to chat as were a crowd of youngsters playing footbal on the beach as we launched Tinker to take us back to Barada in the Bay.
Today we ventured out to sea to do a reccy of Cades Reef a mile offshore, a good snorkelling and dive site - tho windy there wasn't too much swell. A double reef runs parallel to the shore, we went past on the seaward side but could see diveboats and tourist trip Cats between the two reefs...but these were skippered by local people with 'the knowledge'. We decided that we would need to book a days diving with www.indigo-divers.com in Jolly Harbour, so made our way in that direction and anchored at 1645 Antigua-time (20.45 UTC). Tomorrow we will Tinker ashore and make our way in to the Marina and shops as we need to stockup with fresh stores.