Feb 24 Pigeon Island
We took our morning walk and stopped at Rituals for breakfast as usual, it’s a great place to people watch in the morning. There was an international food festival on Pigeon Island today and the plan was to meet up with Trendy and Vicky there. They were getting a ride down from some friends, but Kim wanted to get an early start since she only ahs a few day left for her vacation. We took the bus to Gros Islet and started walking; I showed her the spot on the beach we celebrated New Years Eve on a couple years ago, there were some horses on the beach with one in the water cooling himself.



The beach outside of Gros Islet

The beach between town and the resorts is sandy with patches of broken coral about, there weren’t many tourists here but plenty of local families were taking advantage of the fine day, some of them having cookouts and picnics; this might be a good spot to bring the coal pot to for and afternoon BBQ. We cut through The Landings and Sandals Grand beach area; we fit in with the tourist lined up on the beach there so no one bothered us. We got to the beach just outside the entrance to the park and found a spot to lay our towels; I went up to Agnes’ bar for some drinks, it’s just a small hut but there are a lot of regulars, locals and ex pats, that hang out there during the day.

The beach at Pigeon Island

Kim continued to work on her tan, she has almost caught up to me, and I split my time between swimming and sunning. The water here was crystal clear and the bottom sandy for the most part; there were some people snorkeling along the fence for the park, I have heard it is pretty good here but haven’t tried it myself yet. There was quite a crowd inside the festival and you could hear the music playing on the beach; Trendy showed up about mid afternoon, Vicky wasn’t feeling well so she stayed home. Once Kim had gotten her fill of sun we headed inside to check out the offerings at the various food stands set up on the grounds. There wasn’t much of an international offering, mainly specialties from other areas of the Caribbean; we found one stand that had some very nice choices and stuck with that one for the most part, the prices were less than 5 EC except for full meals. Fully stuffed we walked back to Gros islet, this time following the roadway that runs outside the resorts which is quite a bit longer than the beach route. Kim and I took the bus back to the hotel and had a little nap before going out for the night. We first stopped at The Hairy Clam to see John, probably the last time we will see him until next year, Trendy met us there and when the bar closed we went over to Rehab for karaoke night. The talent levels of the singers varied greatly as to be expected; one of the local working girls had a rather unique version of a popular song, but it did drum up a little business as shortly after finishing she left with a British tourist. It had been a long day so about 12:30 am we walked back to the hotel to get some sleep.