We decided that we wanted to play our time here by ear, and when we got off we decided that a bus tour of the small island would be fun. The "bus" turned out to be a oversized van with seats that folded in and out to get people crammed into every possible spot, so it was hardly a comfortable ride. The island itself is pretty small though, so we were able to hit most of the highlights in an hour or two, with several stops. Most of the "bus" was full of southern african-americans, who seemed to get the most excitement out of seeing their favorite American restaurants were there, snapping pictures each time ("Look, its a KFC!").
Probably the most interesting stop was Hell. Apparently a visiting English dignitary thought the rocky coral formations must have been what hell looked like, and the name stuck. Its mostly a tourist stop, with a post office so you can send post cards from Hell and a whole lot of T shirts. The formation itself is pretty cool looking.
Other highlights of the tour: the sea turtle farm (which we didn't pay to get into) which also had a bunch of dolphins in pools you could swim with or take pictures with (which we didn't pay to do); the rum company store (which we didn't have much use of); and a bunch of historical buildings (which we didn't get to get out or tour).
We did convince the driver to drop off a group of us at one of the beaches for a couple of hours so we could play in the ocean. Tiff and I rented a snorkeling mask from the little shop there and spent some time swimming and playing in the warm, green water at this location.
There were a bunch of little fish swimming around, some of which kept touching Tiff's legs and creeping her out, but we weren't seeing a lot. I decided to try one last time and headed out to the right of where we had spent most of the time and found what we had been hoping for: an area teeming with brightly colored fish of all shapes and sizes. Really a cool experience, I love snorkeling. Unfortunately we were running out of time so I spent 5-10 minutes trying to touch one of the fish, then came back and convinced an already-cleaned-up Tiff that she had to go check it out, so she went back in for 5 minutes as well. Tiff, not being a natural mouth breather like me, actually struggled with the breathing tube and only ended up using the mask and diving.
The bus dropped us back off in the dock area and we had some time to do some shopping, so we got a few touristy things - a conch shell, some little carved figurines for the kids, and the like. Tiffini got enthralled with some hair clips and jewelry that change color when they go out in the sun and bought a few things for the girls as well as a pirate medallion for the boys.
It turned out to be a very nice, fairly relaxing day (very different from our next stop, more to come). Next time I am spending the whole time snorkeling though.
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