While Bernd practised his snorkelling in the pool, I took the hotel shuttle into Bridgetown (about a 15 minute trip). The city is small, hot, and the shopping isn’t much, with few stores, nothing much unique, and very expensive.

In the evening, there was a meet and greet rum punch party hosted by the hotel owner/manager, Bonnie. Afterwards, the staff set up a barbecue buffet dinner on the beach, with a steel band and dancing. This was a lovely, fun evening, and an excellent low-key way to meet the other guests.

With several other hotel guests and the hotel activities director, Reggie, we went to Folkstone Marine Park for a morning of snorkelling. We had our choice of taking a boat out to a sunken shipwreck, or staying near shore and checking out the coral reef and fish. We chose the latter, and were not disappointed. The variety and quantity of fish was simply incredible and the colours were truly beautiful. The reef extended right up to the shore so even without swimming (standing knee deep) you could watch the colourful fish.

In the afternoon, while Bernd recovered from his sunburn (don’t forget to put plenty of waterproof sunblock on the backs of your legs when snorkelling. btw, Aloe Vera Gel worked like a charm on the sunburn), I took part on a nature walk of the hotel with other guests. Our leader, Reggie, was incredibly knowledgeable, not only about the huge variety of plants on the grounds, but also about horticulture in general. While I’m not a gardener myself, others on the walk were, and picked up many gardening tips.

Every Wednesday evening, a noted local amateur astronomer, Leo Branch sets up his telescope on the hotel beach and conducts a little seminar of the night sky. Although the sky was cloudy that night, it was still really interesting to see the stars and planets.