This photo album is brought to you by Fernandes Black Label Rum – Really ‘Drinking Good’

The villa is fabulous

The main deck of the villa is enormous!

You need binoculars just to see from one side of the deck to the other.

There are some pretty bougainvilleas

First things first, into the pool to cool off

Are you sure you brought enough books, Luke? What are you going to do when you’ve finished those ten?

There’s room at the dining table for all 7 of us to play penalty

We see some good sunsets from the deck

Holmes, what’s that citrus bearing plant in the garden? An orange tree, my dear Watson!

Hummingbird in the villa garden

Blue-gray Tanager

Green tanager

Tropical Mockingbirds

Every morning the guttering on the villa next door is visited by parrotlets

The Rufous-vented Chachalacas eat the flowers and fruit off the trees around the villa

Blue-black Grassquit

Bamboo was introduced to the island for use in construction

Mt. Irvine Bay beach is just across the road

Mt. Irvine bay beach caters for almost everyone

there is snorkelling

surfing

a beach bar

and babes

But the grackles will steal the food off your plate if you turn your back for a second

On our way to Arnos Vale Hotel we are directed around a marching band

There are some enormous bamboos around Arnos Vale hotel – and all over the island

We check out the beach for snorkelling and make reservations at the restaurant

…which bar to use when snorkelling at Arnos Vale.

Tree orchid

After booking dinner at Arnos Vale we visit Adventure Farm in search of exotic animals

But the stars of this show are the hummingbirds

We arrive early enough to watch the sunset…

…and it’s not bad

We are joined by the hotel’s parrot, Pirate II

Blue-crowned Motmot

After sunset the hummingbird feeders are visited by bats!

…dozens of them

Grafton nature trails

This place used to be a working plantation

KEEP AWAY FROM HORSE

Flamboyant tree

‘We’re going bird watching!’

Rufous-vented Chachalacas

Silver-beaked tanager

Castara Bay

Stone Haven is the bay for bobbing

Pigeon Point is beautiful

Pigeon Point is a good place to chill out

it has a bar

and souvie t-shirts

‘That’s what I’m talking about!’

An airship flies over Mt Irvine bay

At Scarborough there is a botanic garden

Pink poui, apamata

Disused aviary

Epiphyte on a Balsam

The best place to eat in the Mt. Irvine Bay/Stone Haven Bay area is the Fishpot

Back to Pigeon Point…

…for a boat trip to a drift snorkel and, our first ever, ‘drag’ snorkel

…and a visit to pelican island and nylon pools

When we weren’t looking at fish, we were grilling ’em

We go snorkelling at Englishman’s Bay in search of cat fish

Snorkelling in Englishman’s Bay

A series of unfortunate cock-ups!

Waiting for Frankie. Little did we know the bus was <cough>broken</cough> and we were about to be driven across the island in seperate cars by maniac drivers.

…we do a spot of bird watching in Mt. Irvine bay car park while we wait.

Tropical Kingbird

Bananaquits

The manic drive is to get us to Speyside in time for a boat trip to the bird sanctuary island of Little Tobago.

Frankie says Frank didn’t tell him the boat had been chartered by a cruise ship party, so we have to wait for it to become available.

…we don’t mind having to wait here.

Speyside is on the windward side of the island!

We are led on a steep climb up Little Tobago

Tyrone is a good tour guide and compensates for the earlier screw ups. Here he is knocking on a tree to make the ants come running out.

From this vantage point we can watch Red-billed Tropicbirds and Magnificent Frigates on the wing.

Red-billed Tropicbird

Magnificent Frigate

They call this a Tourist Tree!

Here we meet Barrie Britton who is filming the birds for a new BBC show.

I bet Barrie’s pictures aren’t as good as this

The next day we go back to Arnos Vale for another snorkel…

…but there is no bathing due to Portuguese Man O’ Wars 😦

So we try Stone Haven which we decide doesn’t look good for snorkelling, but we see fishermen seining bait fish.

…looks like Ballyhoo