11 March Island exploring

We arrived on Saturday, cleared in on Sunday at no extra charge and took off on a motorbike on Monday.

After doing our clearance with the only agent on the island, Mr Bernardo B Bush, we took a walk around the town stopping to visit the small island museum housed in a former Baptist church. Retracing our steps back to town we crossed the wooden footbridge over to Catalina island. Catalina has no roads and no motor vehicles. A paved shore side path took us past restaurants and guest houses and then up steps to the site of Fort Warwick with commanding views across the bay.

Baptist church turned museum

hummingbird

Colourful Catalina guest house

Fory Warwick

Anchorage at Providencia

For £15 we hired a motorbike to travel farther afield. When an island is just 4 miles long by 2 miles wide you can ride all the roads twice, stop for a long lunch and still be back at base by mid afternoon. Our route took us south from Town to Freshwater Bay where we found Sonny's dive shop to book three days of diving. With a tick against diving in the to do list we headed back to town to share the news with the diving chums who were going to be coming with us. Another tick on the list. This done we kept going on a clockwise track to the north of the island, a brief stop to view the offshore island of Crab Cay from Maracaibo and chat to the guys who rent kayaks and offer boat trips. It was a case of 'got our own mate, but thanks'.

another island another motorbike

Crab Cay from Maracaibo

Bottom House road sign

It was only 11 o'clock and we'd already ridden half of the total tarmac of the island so a leisurely cruise down the east coast with views out to the fringing reef, through Bottom House village and in to Southwest Bay for lunch.

Southwest Bay has a collection of beach side eateries and a long sandy beach used for horse racing on Saturday afternoons. We'd come here to have the renowned seafood platter at restaurant Divinio Nino Jesus. The location is idyllic, the beers cold and the platter a handsome feast of lobster, local black crab, snapper and calamari.

At 2 o'clock we found ourselves with a bike booked until 6pm and having seen all the island. What do you do now? You ride back to town the long way by going anticlockwise and retracing our route. Sights look different when seen from the other way.