The Stingrays in Antigua

Every morning when we wake up we step outside onto our veranda and look at the island come into focus as we get closer to port. They have all had that pristine clear water contrasting with the green vegetation on the interior of the island and then these colourful houses lining their way up the hill. This morning everything seemed to be cleaner or more untouched. I'm not sure if it's because the other mornings have been over cast and today the sun was already hot and brightening everything up but I could not get over the colours of the water.
There is something really great to waking up in the morning and going to sit down on your own little balcony to experience something new in the warming sun with no where to rush off to... except the breakfast buffet. We eat breakfast looking outside onto the water and the new city we are about to explore.
Every day it seems we meet a few new couples and they are always really nice and have great stories to share. Maybe it's because we are all on vacation so who could be rude and cranky while on vacation or maybe it's just that nice people have been cruising all this time leaving the cranky people behind but either way it's been a lot of fun getting to know the people we've been travelling and enjoying the ride along with us.

What a fun day! This morning as we were coming into port we saw another ship following us and went up to our pool deck to take a good look at the competition. After we were finished sizing up the other ship we got off the boat and walked around the town for a little bit before our excursion was set to leave. It seemed that the taxi drivers were less pushy then normal and we figured it was because there was twice as many people to heckle and I welcomed the nice change.
We walked up towards to an old church and cemetery and explored the grounds. Unfortunately they were doing some renovations to the church so we couldn't go inside. It looked really amazing though with all the old tombs, stone walls and church towers.

I was so excited for our excursion today; swimming with stingrays. How fun does that sound? We took a shuttle through the island to this pretty little beach. It really looked better then a picture because it's impossible for a camera to capture it. While we were there waiting for direction on where to go we ran into our British friends who came over to tell us that the stingrays "were just brilliant." They loved it which made me even more excited to get out into the water and touch them! We divided up into boats and set off through super clear water in search of a sandbar.

After a short ride you could see this floating dock in the water. The boat pulled up and off we got with our snorkelling gear. We had been told that once you get into the water you shuffle through the sand so that your feet don't leave the ground because stepping on the stingrays tails would not be a good thing. They also said that if you want to get a picture you need to do it before you handle the squid because the stingray will be able to smell it on you and won't relax enough for you to handle it in your arms. Also we were to keep our thumbs tucked into our fist while holding the squid because they have huge suction power when sucking the squid out of your hands, hmmm, maybe I should be a little more nervous? Nah! The water was cold, of course, but it wasn't too deep at all. We first headed over to get a chance to hold the stingray. I guess Ryan wasn't too sure about having it in his arms so he played the role of camera man perfectly while I got my first touch of a stingray. Yea, it was pretty slimy and it was so relaxed it was like a dead weight in my arms.
From there we went to the guy handing out squid where he taught us how to old it in our hands and reminded me to tuck in my thumb. With squid in hand I went to meet Ryan and stuck that hand in the water and just stood there. Da da, da da, da da aaaaahhhhhhh. They just swim up from behind and brush past you with their slimy bodies and then all of a sudden this huge suction comes out of no where and the squid is gone. Seriously, if my thumb had not been tucked in, it may be inside it's tummy.

It took Ryan a little while to warm up to the idea of this Steve Irwin killer to eat from his hand but he did and it was awesome. If you ever get the chance to swim with stingrays, you need to do it.

After dinner tonight we went to the show in the ships theatre. It was an illusionist and he was fantastic and hilarious. I loved it and could have sat for a whole other hour watching him no problem. It was such a great ending to our fun day! His name was Jason Bishop and I would highly recommend clicking on his name and checking out his website.