After a coffee and a slice of toast, we headed down to the reception area. Here, we were picked up by a taxi that drove us to Port Ferdinando. To be honest, we could’ve walked there but the transport was all arranged as part of the trip.

At the port, we met our captain for the day, Dougie, as well as the other people on our trip. Once we were all there we walked down to the ‘Cool Runnings’ catamaran.

Dougie gave us all a safety briefing before we left the port and introduced us to the crew; Kevin, Jayden and the chef. As we left, the bridge opened up – a bit like tower bridge in London but a lot smaller.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and there was a lovely breeze whilst the boat was moving. We made ourselves comfortable at the front of the boat.

It wasn’t long before they came round with some drinks, so we started drinking quite early on in the day!

Our first stop was a shipwreck off the west coast of the island. The shipwrecks are part of a marine park, and they purposely sink the ships to encourage coral growth and an underwater ecosystem. There are six shipwrecks to explore in the marine park, and we saw one of the smaller ones – the Bajan Queen, which was sunk in 2002.

Over 200 ships have been wrecked off the coast of Barbados since 1666. The majority of ships are wrecked during hurricanes or other storms. In 1694 a hurricane sunk 26 merchant ships in Carlisle Bay.

The most common fish swimming around the wrecked was the sergeant major and the Bermuda chub.

After around 20 minutes in the water, we headed back to the boat to dry off. We passed the famous Sandy Lane Hotel and some play contraption in the middle of the sea.

We were only on the boat for around 10 minutes before our next snorkelling stop – turtles.

We saw quite a few turtles swimming quite close to the boat. The turtles we saw were green turtles, but other turtles live around the coast of Barbados too.

We also saw some batwing fish. This is their local name, but I can’t remember what their proper name is. We also saw a Tarpon

Obviously we took some photos of ourselves too.

When we got back on the boat, we were showered down to remove the salt water.

After the turtles stop, we sailed up the coast for a while before stopping for lunch. The lunch was delicious.

I went back in the water to do some more exploring. I saw loads more fish swimming over the reefs.

I think most of them were types of parrot fish, although there were some that I hadn’t seen before. I was also lucky enough to see a spotted morray eel.

Whilst I was out snorkelling, the ladies had a bit of a photo shoot.

When I got back on board, it was time for dessert, which was also delicious.

We soon arrived back at the port. The trip was so good. The captain and the rest of the crew were lovely and kept the drinks topped up!

Back at our apartment, we had a swim in the pool.

At sunset, we went down to the beach. There was loads of seaweed on the beach, which is very unusual for the Caribbean beaches. But apparently, the wind is blowing in a different direction to normal.

In the evening we headed to our favourite place, Joan’s, for what we thought would be a light dinner. It was way too much food, and we ended up bringing half of it home!

Whilst we were sitting at Joan’s, one of the local buses stopped outside, and a gentleman in uniform came in, used the toilet, and ordered a shot of rum, which he took back on the bus. The uniform was that of the police guard band.

On the steps just putside the apartment, we saw a massive frog/toad.