Guest Report

[Ric French]

Carpe Diem is conveniently located in the village up the hill and equidistant to the main beach and Heavenly Bay or (Little Bay), as it’s known locally, which immediately became our preferred swim & lime location. The Boathouse restaurant there serve up delicious food, squid, prawn or fish in a coconut curry sauce and bake (coconut bread) was superb and also many cold bottles of Stag (a mans beer!) and rum punch naturally! Their drum & limbo evening was fun and a really good atmosphere with locals and visitors getting it together.
The house is also really handy for Bingy’s the fruit and veg King and Hazel makes bread and roti to order, turn left and Mr Coddringtons Bar is right there also good for take away beers, wine & spirits. Back at the house, The Green room had a personal fridge but we also shared the owners kitchen / living room which is really well equipped and has a large American fridge to keep food fresh and drinks cold, here all food should be stored to avoid attracting things!
We chilled out on the vast upper terrace that runs the full length of the property with amazing views of Castara Bay, looking out to sea directly west so an ideal sundowner location, and there were several impromptu get together’s with Chris and Yvonne, the wonderful hospitable owners, and other guests from the two studio apts. If someone would bring back whole fresh fish from the co-operative, on the beach, we’d BBQ and sit around chilling out (liming) all evening.
We watched pelicans dive for fish in the mornings, and a multitude of exotic birds feed, the bird book by my namesake was really useful. The garden and surroundings are incredibly lush, green and tropical, banana, mango, papaya, guava, coconut & lime in abundance… made lovely smoothies. The Coffee shop (Cheno’s) is very good for breakfast but surprisingly the coffee on Tobago isn’t the best, mainly serving strong instant mmmm!
Tings - Englishman’s Bay is spectacular and just what you would expect of a typically tropical Caribbean beach with just one small restaurant and gift shop.
Castara has it’s own waterfall well worth making the trek upstream and crossing the river several times to get there, easy now!
After a week here you feel like you already know half the village, it’s so friendly and relaxed a world away from the busy beach resorts in the south. Felt no real desire to leave except for a round of golf at Mount Irvine, and an interesting King David rain forest tour – it’s very green there!
Think – chilled out, easy-going, soon coming, no hurry no worry, one love, naturalist not naturist – Little Jamaica – Thanks to Yvonne & Christafari for providing all the ingredients for a wonderful relaxed experience.