We returned to Falmouth Harbour on Antigua’s south coast as a stepping off point for Guadeloupe.  On the way we stopped for lunch at Carlisle Bay which is very sheltered at the eastern end from the prevailing wind, which we were able to use for the southerly passage from Jolly Harbour, but had to motor into for the easterly reach across the south of the island.  There were numerous turtles in Carlisle Bay.  At one time we saw three turtles at once on the surface near the boat.  Unfortunately, they have a habit of staying on the surface just long enough to send people scurrying for their cameras, but not long enough to be photographed!  During a brief snorkel swim I followed two separate turtles underwater across the beds of sea grass.

 

There were very few fish to be seen on the sea grass beds, though I did find two small crayfish (locally called lobster) hiding under a sea grass ledge on the edge of a sandy hollow. The rocks near the shore provided shelter for Squirrel fish and Lion fish.   The former are ubiquitous in the Caribbean with their red colouration and eyes looking as though applied clumsily with mascara, but the Lion fish is an unwelcome immigrant from the Indian Ocean which has no natural predators in the Caribbean and an appetite for small fish.  Its large colourful fins have poisonous tips to their rays making them unattractive to predators and dangerous to handle without stout gloves or, better still, a net.

 

The arrival in Falmouth Harbour was an opportunity to tour Nelson’s Dockyard in English Harbour, just a few hundred metres away.  The well preserved buildings are now tourist shops and a museum, but nonetheless give a reasonable idea of what it was like in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when it served a key role in the struggles for supremacy among the European powers of the day.

 

Turtle

 

Squirrel fish

 

Lion fish

 

 

Banana Quits with Mick

 

Crew at the gun on One Gun Battery, which protects the entrance to English Harbour

 

The entrance to English Harbour

 

Preserved buildings at Nelson’s Dockyard