Antigua - A Beach for Every DayNov 30, 2008
|
|
Stingray on the Bed
Artistic Carvings on Watermelon
Love the Crayola Painted Buildings
We were up early and had finished breakfast just as we docked right on schedule at Heritage Quay Pier at St. John’s, Antigua. The locals like the pronunciation of ‘An-tee-ga’ for the name of the island. It is a coral island and the largest of the British Leeward Islands. St. John’s is the capital. Because of its harbors and its geographic position, it was the main British naval base in the West Indies during the Napoleonic Wars. The U.S. even used Antigua as a base during World War II. However, today, tourism is the main staple of the island along with some agriculture.
So, with that naval history in mind, we decided on a short highlights tour that focused on its naval heritage. After a short drive through the island, we stopped at the Blockhouse ruins, a military fort built in 1787 featuring officers’ quarters and powder magazine. Then, it was on up the hill to Shirley Heights. From here we had a bird’s eye view of English Harbor, full of boats, and on across the bay, we could see the island of Montserrat. The Heights was a main lookout post for hostile ships in the days of Admiral Nelson. The remains of officers’ quarters, barracks, batteries, and powder magazines are still scattered around. The Georgian-era Guardhouse serves as a bar and restaurant and we were ready for a bottle of cold water.
The next stop was Nelson’s Dockyard National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This was the home port of the British Fleet in the 18th century and the dockyard was used as repair and maintenance facilities for ships. Many of the buildings are restored and house such facilities as the Nelson Dockyard Museum, which contains naval memorabilia. The restored dockyard today remains the only Georgian naval base still in use. Glitzy yachts are a common sight in the harbor these days.
We had a rum punch drink in the courtyard of the rustic Admiral’s Inn before returning to the ship for lunch. Our guide was very good and quite informative and gave us a lot of information on the history and culture of the island. We were impressed with the cleanliness of the island and we’d definitely come back here to spend a little more time on this island and visit the sister island of Barbuda, which is accessible by ferry. Antigua boasts that it has 365 beaches, one for each day of the year. We'll take their word for that, who'd want to count them anyway? A couple of single girls were heading off to check them out as we were returning to the ship.
Back on board, we had lunch and got on the internet and sorted out some pictures. We had dinner as usual and went to the evening show. It headlined the Comedy and Magic act of “Levent”. He did some nice magic tricks; but, he certainly wasn’t the highlight of the entertainment for us. Big Band Sounds was the music theme for after-dinner dancing, or one could learn to Cha Cha with lessons from the ship’s staff. The Cha Cha is a dance I never liked so we passed on that. If we had boundless energy, a Ballroom Dance competition capped off the evening; but we don’t have boundless energy so we skipped that too. We called it a night; we have an early tour booked in Tortola tomorrow because we’re in port for just half a day.
