Swimming in the Carlisle Bay with the Turtles

[Sunshyne4ever]

We just got back from our cruise (RCCL, Jewel of the seas) and had a wonderful time. Just wanted to mentioned spending the day swimming with the turtles was so much fun, I had to post it here. lol

 

We were too late to book a spot with Calabaza or Silvermoon Catamaran tours, so we were on our. But that didn't stop us, all we did was walk off the cruise ship and walked along the sidewalk along the water, and we got to the beach about 15-25 minutes, as I had to stop and take photos along the way.

 

We picked a place with two chairs and an umbrella for $15 total and plopped ourselves down. (had a huge breakfast before we left, so we didn't buy anything food or drinks)

 

Started to snorkel around, and not even 20 feet in front of us from the sand was a huge starfish. (a size of a Frisbee). There were about 10 that we saw that day. For the turtles, you do have to swim a bit farther away, maybe about 90 feet (30 metres) you could see one or two swimming by.

 

It's only when a boat tour that comes along, and the tour guy comes and feeds them squid that there will be more turtles around. But if you're patient enough, you will see them. We were out in the water for about an hour, and then we went back later on in the afternoon. At most we saw 5 at one time.

 

As for boat tours, I recommend it if you don't have that much time, or if you have kids that can't swim for too long. They were offering $15-20 pp to just go from the beach to the location of the water.

 

We did talk to a couple who did the Calabaza tour ($110) and they had a wonderful time, swam with the turtles and the shipwreck, and had a huge lunch on the Catamaran. They take you to a different location other then Carlisle bay. So maybe next time we'll do that, but this time all we wanted to do was lie on the beach and swim for an hour or so.

 

See map on where we walked to the beach. Hope this helps

[merinski]

This is great! Thank you for sharing! Would you say you are in good shape to swim out there? Is it better to take the boat? Thanks:)

[shay1]

We are leaving on Monday for 10 cruise on NCL Sun and we are wanting to go to Carlisle Bay to snorkel (we have all our own gear). Can you tell me where it was that you stop and rented the chairs? We do not want to go to Boatyard we just want to go to the beach to snorkel and dive on the ship wrecks.

[Sunshyne4ever]

We are leaving on Monday for 10 cruise on NCL Sun and we are wanting to go to Carlisle Bay to snorkel (we have all our own gear). Can you tell me where it was that you stop and rented the chairs? We do not want to go to Boatyard we just want to go to the beach to snorkel and dive on the ship wrecks.

 

 

Oh you're so lucky, it's considered to be -21 degrees celcius today, uggh! Hope you have a wonderful time. I really don't remember where we had rented our chairs. I knew when I hit "Lobster alive" that we were at the beginning of the bay

 

Directions

(google map "Carlisle bay barbados")

we walked down (20-30mins)

1. Princess Alice hwy (there's a sidewalk)

2. We then made a left pass through the parking lot of the Bridgetown heliport (which will become The Wharf rd)

3. then once you see Chamberlain Bridge cross over

4. head onto Bay St. (You'll have to pass a few local market stalls),

5. keep walking til you get "Lobster Alive" bar/restaurant (it's red)

6. We were going to go here as our inital plan, but it seemed to us it was too far from all the boats

7. so we just keep walking onto the sandy beach, and kept going til we saw more chairs and umbrellas

8. I guess we stayed closer to "Bayshore Beach" (see attached pic - carlislebayswimmingroute)

- we stayed with the red color umbrella

- Green line (DH swam straight to the beach and then walked back to the chair

- magenta line, I swam back diagonally back to the chairs (needed more exercise, lol)

 

I also think, there were more boats near the "Brownes Beach/Pebbles beach" which may indicate the "shipwrecks" and turtles. We didn't really care much about the shipwrecks so we didn't walk further down. It does get hot, so if you can't stand the heat, just take a taxi $5pp instead of walking to get to say "Pebbles beach" from the ship.

 

hope this helps

[lostdart1]

just back from barbados. I used this book and saved around $250 for the day and had a blast.... Unbelievable great money saving tips...have fun.

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/b00j5xn0nc

 

spam!!!!

[lovecruise22]

Did you see a lot of fish at carsile bay? I've heard good and bad things about it...

 

 

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