Green Turtle Bay

We got up quite early the next morning, to make the most of the beach that we had, but were told that we could stay in the hut for a second night. Things were looking up; maybe there would be Christmas cancellations! We spent a lot of the next day sunbathing, reading and playing about in the waves, but in the afternoon the sand was cool enough for us to play some volleyball on the net that was on the beach. The numbers were made up by one of the guys who works for GTB but was off duty ("African friend") and an American girl. Volleyball is a hell of a lot of fun, even though I am awful at it and spent most of my time on the sand it was really good fun. Also good to be able to dive into the sea when you got too hot or sandy!

The food at the restaurant on site was so good; and not too badly priced considering we were a few kilometres from any other town. We mainly had BBQ'd fresh fish or chicken with rice and really good sauces, but the other good thing was that the menu was quite varied! Breakfasts were quite good as well - an attempt at a 'Half English' was pretty good.

Green Turtle Bay was in the guide book as a heavily recommended place to stay, with an eco-friendly set up and great facilities. The toilets were all self composting and the electricity came from solar panels on the huts' roofs. Another benefit was to see some rare turtles head onto the beach during the night and lay their eggs. We had signed up for that night, but no one came up to us to say that the tour would start.

Instead, we found Trivial Pursuit at Green Turtle Bay, and over the course of Happy Hour at the bar - cheap gin and tonics for me - we found ourselves in a battle of wits! Turns out it was the Genius Edition! Saying that though, we did answer quite a few correctly, and me and Barney beat Kez and Dree. Even though Barney doesn't know where a coffin joint on a horse is... (Wish I'd have taken a photo of the surfboard over the bar, which itself was an old pirogue, as it was a caricature of Jesus painted on it, with him saying "Jesus loves cocktails!").

The next day we had to move out of the hut and into the tents for our last night. Such a shame that we didn't think about booking for Christmas a few months ago, but the owners mentioned that they'd been booked for a longer time than that. Made us feel a bit better anyway. Kez was sick during the night and wasn't too sprightly that morning, but we think it's probably because of all the salt water she swallowed during her battle with the sea!

Me and Barney went for a walk around the bay to see if we could find any alternative accommodation for the next few days, before our stay in Busua over Christmas. Barnes had already taken a wander the morning before during a bout of sleeplessness, and so we set off the same way. Passing through the local village of Akwwida, with its fishing boats pulled up on the sand, and wooden bridge over a lagoon that depends on the height of the tide.

On the other side of the bridge we followed the shoreline round, and had to cut up a steep, tree-lined hill before coming down on the other side in a completely sheltered little bay. There were huts about 10 metres back from the beach and we aimed for one of the bigger buildings. After talking with the manager Dennis, a Frenchman who had only been in the job for a few months, and spoke only a little English, we organised staying there for the next three nights. At least something was sorted. More about Ezile Bay later.

Another beach day followed - more body boarding, swimming and tanning -before us three lads went for lunch at Paco's Tacos; a little bar hidden in palm trees a few dozen metres from the resort. Nice to mix things up a bit, foodwise, and we had a good little Mexican lunch. Afterwards we moved everything into the tents. They weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be, but were tents regardless. The far cheaper price made it a lot better though.

After another few hours relaxing on the almost deserted beach, we had a good meal (fresh fish coconut curry for me) and then decided to call it a night. We wanted to get up before the sun became too hot, for our walk around the bay to Ezile. Me and Barney stayed up reading for a bit longer and were asked if we wanted to join the turtle tour. Better late than never I suppose, as we signed up two days ago, but off we went (Kez still not feeling well and Dree sleeping).

It was about 9:30pm and so was pitch black. To add to that, the guide who came with us spoke quietly, and over the roar of the waves crashing down we couldn't hear anything. We took a torch with us and the only wildlife we saw were the hundreds of opaque/white crabs scuttling around on the beach. The closest we saw to a turtle was a track where one had crawled up to the treeline a few days before. The whole thing took about an hour, and after more than a kilometre walking on sand, the group turned round and headed back. Will say one thing though; we were out like lights as soon as we got into the tent.