This photo album is brought to you by Fernandes Black Label Rum – Really ‘Drinking Good’
…and Andy Boy Jumbo Romaine Hearts (fresh seal)
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!
Pretty leaf
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
Ravenala madagascariensis, aka Travelers Tree, tends to grow in an East/West plane.
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
Red-crowned woodpecker
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
Rufous-tailed Jacamar
Silver-beaked tanager
On the road to Castara we stop to look at the view
Castara Bay
Whilst eating lunch at Castara Bay we are treated to a steel drum lesson for a mere TT$40
Chickens range free all over the island
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.
The blue-gray tanagers here are a deeper blue than the ones on the main island
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.