Too many cocks spoil the sloth!

We both had a bad nights sleep; Dogs were barking all night and we had an early wake up call by cockerels. I was very annoyed. We headed back into Bridgetown and walked around the historical buildings to see them in the day – Parliament, Synagogue, Anglican Church and the Market. After walking round town for an hour or so, we went to the Atlantis Submarine. Neither of us had been on a submarine before and we hoped that the clear Caribbean waters would be filled with fish, turtles and sharks. It was a short boat ride out to the submarine. It was a cozy sub, but everyone had their own porthole to look through. We descended to 150 feet and floated over a reef watching lots of coral and small fish. We even saw an eel and a ship wreck and Sarah spotted a stingray.

Back on land we had a quick stop off at the Pelican Craft Village to buy some pottery as a souvenir. We had a delicious bagel (with ham, onions, peppers and mushrooms) at the Bean and Bagel Café opposite parliament and finished off the meal with a heavenly traditional rum cake dessert (almost as good as Joan’s!). We think this meal was much better than the Waterfront café. As we have wandered around Bridgetown we enjoyed listening to shops playing Christmas carols with a reggae twist!

After lunch we went to Gun Hill Signal Station. It has a nice red building in lush landscape with good panoramic views of the island. It was built by the British following the failed slave uprising of 1818. Then we took a taxi to the Atlantic East coast and went to the Andromeda Botanical Gardens. We enjoyed a peaceful walk around the gardens and after we walked down to the beach and strolled along. The sea is much rougher on this side of the island. We didn’t want to spend more money on a taxi so decided to wait for a bus. This being the seerioussly easy going Caribbean, we had an hours wait before the scheduled arrival of the bus. It was dark by the time the bus should have arrived and we started to get a bit nervous. It finally turned up a long ten minutes late and it took 45 minutes to get back to Bridgetown and then we had to get another bus to Rockley, where we were staying.

We had a super Greek meal at OPA! overlooking the ocean. The food and cocktails were great. Being a Greek restaurant we were given a plate to smash as we left. Sarah felt bad that we would make a mess so I threw it on the floor in the bar. On the way back I was told off by a Bajan man because Sarah was carrying the bags – “Help the lady with dem bags man”, but Sarah wouldn’t let me help. I think she wanted me to look bad.