Museum, Stingray City and Devil’s Bridge

During our visit to the museum in the Dockyard, we saw that the children’s interactive room could do with renovation, so we called the curator and asked if we could possibly work with the children on the Antigua’s Environment exhibit. Dr Murphy was extremely positive, so we went across to the museum and started to work out what was there and what we could do. We did a deal with Jamie and Alex that redoing the exhibit meant we didn’t have to do school!

In the afternoon, we went to Stingray City! A boat took us out to a floating dock next to a shallow enclosure which contained about 50-60 stingrays. We were briefed on how big the stingrays are (big!!), how to hold them and how to do the “stingray shuffle” to avoid stepping on them.

It was quite unnerving. Although the rays are nominally enclosed, they can actually swim away and they choose to stay there because they get fed. So as soon as we got in the water they knew it was "lunchtime" so they swarmed, brushing against our legs and swimming underneath them. Once you get used to it, it’s amazing to watch these graceful creatures swoop and glide. We had the opportunity to hold a ray – but you had to relax or they would thrash and swim away. Chris fed one with a squid and was amazed at the suction – we were warned about “love bites!”

Devil’s Bridge was our next destination. This extraordinary natural formation is constantly bombarded by waves even on relatively calm days because of the 3,000 mile fetch from Africa to Antigua. It has natural blow holes which shoot water high into the sky cued by the sound of breathing from the rocks. Nature in action!