The kayak tour is an excellent way to get up close to nature here in Antigua. The mangrove areas of our coast are intricate, tranquil channels with clear tea-colored water that provides a great view of the life within the roots. Known as the 'nursery of the sea', life starts here for many species of fish, crab, lobster, and even birds. Paddling a kayak, you have a moving, front row seat to all of these sights and sounds, even the birds don't take much notice and you can get surprisingly close to many of them. The guides of our kayak adventure tours are experienced and genuinely enjoy learning and teaching about this habitat - they will point out the creatures and explain their role in the whole system.

The tour starts at the kayak clubhouse where you are fitted withe a comfortble life jacket. A skiff collects you and the other kayakers and takes you to the starting platform. The guide introduces you to the boats, demonstrates paddling technique and matches up partners for those who don't wish to paddle alone. When everyone is comfortable the group sets out for a short crossing into the mangrove channels, most of which are shallow enough to stand up in.

I was immediately impressed that these guys were not just going through a prepared script about the mangrove ecosystem. They had real working knowledge of the area and its inhabitants and presented the info in a logical way that demonstrated how they worked as a system. We got to see and touch if you were brave enough, upside down jellyfish, sea cucumbers, starfish, sea urchins. Those are usually all you can touch though, as the snappers, barracudas, stingrays, mullet, tarpon, jacks and other fish are a lot more evasive even though you can get a good look at them through the glassy surface. Lots of birds use the mangroves for feeding, roosting and even nesting. Pelicans, laughing gulls, terns, fly around, diving on fish, Kinfishers and Osprey also feed here and the shallow areas are patrolled by great blue herons, great egrets, little blue herons, snowy egrets and green backed herons creep among the roots. The mangrove cuckoo is a rarely seen resident and turtle doves and White crowned pigeons nest in the predator free mangrove thickets. The endangered whistiling duck is also a frequent visitor here.

Since most of our previous experience of the mangroves was fishing from noisy outboard boats or staggering through calf deep mud, we were amazed at how much more life we saw from our silent kayaks, and also at the amazing access and maneuverability we had in these little boats. Its rare that a tour shows us a new way to see things here in our own backyard but this one did - Do it, you wont be dissappointed!

- Eli and Roddy