Carriacou - snorkeling,diving & walking

We arrived at Carriacou and took a mooring at Sandy Island in the marine park. We have not been here before but has heard rave reviews of the snorkeling here so thought we would continue our underwater explorations.

The mooring field at Sandy Island

Sandy Island beach

The island is narrow enough to see both sides at once

The north end of the beach

Some trees give shade for picnics or BBQ's

Moosetracks at anchor

We immediately decided to have a snorkel of the north reef, so the following morning we went after breakfast to explore the wonderful; coral, sponges and fish.

Fantastic coral and sponge colors

A beautiful purple hue

Stunning colors

Lots of different coral too

Magnificent colors

Of course being a marine park it is a no take area and as you would expect the lobsters come out and wave at you!!!

10 lobsters in one hole !

White spotted Filefih

Sand Diver

Blue Tang juvenile

Orange spotted Filefish

Porcupinefish

Banded Butterflyfish

Yellowtail Damselfish (Jewelfish)

Yellowtail Damselfish juvenile

Trumpetfish

Scrawled Filefish

Blue Tang

Blue Chrmis

Three Spot Damselfish - attacking the camera

Small mouth Grunt

Spotted drum

Glassy Sweeper

Blue Tang & Striped Parrotfish (juv)

Parrotfish (juv), Four eye Butterflyfish, Yellow head wrasse

Caribbean reef Squid

Of course September is Liz's birthday so as Euan Mara had arrived Keith and Linda joined us for the celebrations.

Cheers Keith and Linda

With the birthday girl

Birthday cake, with all the candles between us.

After a wonderful time at Sandy Island we moved into Tyrell Bay for the rest of the month. We love it here and have many friends you transition through so its a great place to hang out.

A lovely sunset on arriving

There are some nice reefs around the bay so since we were all in the mood for more snorkeling we did a few explorative trips

Yellow Damselfish

Lionfish

Four eye Butterflyfish

Rock Beauty

Grey Angelfish juvenile

Townsend Angelfish

SmoothTrunkfish

Glasseye Snapper

Blackbar Soldierfish

Lion Fish

Longspine Squirellfish

Townsend Angelfish and Blackbar Soldierfish

Palometa

We stopped in several times to see Richard and Diane at Lumbadive to book lionfish SCUBA hunts. They told us they had a couple of humming bird nests in the compressor room of all places. So we had to go see.

Mama coming to the nest

Humming bird nest about 2" diameter

We really enjoy walking the hills and bays around Carriacou so we set of with Keith and Linda to explore the hills to the north of Tyrell Bay.

Local fishing boats are anchored here

You can see Sandy island from here too

Enjoying our walk

Nothing is relaxed as much as a pig in mud.

I did mange to get a lionfish hunt in during September. Diane, Steve (Manx Goose) and I went on a dive while Chis and Dave (Platina) did the snorkel version. 

Spotted Eel and Scorpionfish

Devin trying for the kill shot

We did another walk around the est of Carriacou starting from Windward. Keith and Linda joined us along with Robin and Dudley the crew from Aseka

Our bus driver was really friendly

In windward we stopped at the boat builders again

More progress since our last visit

Father and Son builders

One of Windward's older houses

Keith almost found a trophy, but we left it alone.

Our group

The nice pond near Windward

A local on his trusty old Donkey

David & Elizabeth are rebuilding this home left by their Grandma

The old windmill at Grand Bay

The killer hill - doesn't look so bad from here

With Platina and Euan Mara we decided to go for a walk and collect trash washed up on the beach. It's a sad fact that a lot of sea creature die from either eating or being trapped in garbage so we felt we could do our bit in a particularly bad westerly shore.

Builders took our trash to haul out.

We collect a big sack like this each.

We still love the sunsets in Tyrell Bay.

Another sunset