Antigua - Land of Sea and Sun

You could call it a very delayed honeymoon or a much needed break or a mixture of both, but the reality was that we desperately needed to get away for a while. A long and wide ranging search across the globe for sun, warmth and snorkelling brought us to the wonderful little island Antigua in the Caribbean. We had not been looking at the Caribbean as an option because of the fear of hurricanes, but booking the holiday five days before we flew out meant we had a pretty good idea of what the weather would be like and the forecast was good.

Antigua is a fantastic place - very friendly people, wonderful food, excellent rum and 365 beaches - one beach for every day of the year they say.  The island of Antigua is only 108 square miles with a population of 88,000 people.  Antigua was once a British colony until their independence in 1981 and Queen Elizabeth II remains their Head of State.  English is the spoken language, but there is definitely a strong Antiguan accent and dialect which is often incomprehensible to the foreign visitor. Together with its sister island Barbuda and the numerous uninhabited islands, this small country might not be as well known as some of its neighbours, but it is a great place to visit - we just wish we had more time there.

It takes no more than an hour to drive anywhere on Antigua, though many natives don't seem to venture far from their villages. Our resort was on the far eastern side of the island and many Antiguans would exclaim how far that was from St John's, the capital on the western side.  Nestled in a sheltered bay facing the Atlantic, Nonsuch Bay Resort was the perfect home away from home for a week.  Craving peace, quiet and seclusion, this little resort was exactly what we were looking for.

Arriving at VC Bird airport, we were greeted by some island music, rum punch and oppressive heat and humidity. We had left the UK that morning wearing winter hats in the freezing cold and walked off the plane to temperatures almost thirty degrees Celsius warmer! You are greeted by what we imagine to be classic Caribbean attitudes towards bureaucratic formalities and driving - but that just helped us to get into the island mentality needed for the week.

Once we got settled, we spent the week relaxing and exploring this beautiful place, venturing from one side of the island to the other through lush rolling mountains, banana tree lined roads, a beautiful little rain forest and breathtaking coastal beaches. 

We spent our first couple of days between the resort and Green Island, a little uninhabited island just ten minutes on a zodiac across the bay. The resort takes you out there and will even deliver lunch from the restaurant and you usually have a beach and cove for snorkelling all to yourself. We met a really nice couple from Boston in the beautiful infinity pool at the bar on Saturday afternoon and agreed to go together to the weekly party at Shirley Heights on Sunday evening. 

Shirley Heights is named for the governor of Antigua who fortified the military defences in 1781 and commands a fantastic viewpoint overlooking the south coast of the island, including English Harbour, Nelson's Dockyard and the island of Montserrat. The sunsets are wonderful, famous for exhibiting the 'green flash', though we didn't see it. There was a very good local steel band playing music, some wonderful BBQ food and then a live band doing a mixture of reggae, pop and rock covers. It was quite touristy, but there were enough locals there to give it a very slight veneer of respectability. We had a really good time with Matt and Susie and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the island from that elevated viewpoint.

After a couple of days lying low, we rented a little 4wd and took to the roads. The driving in Antigua isn't too bad if like us you have experience driving on the left side of the road and on narrow country lanes. The road quality is a little rough, hence the 4wd, though the worst road was actually the unpaved one that leads to the resort. 

We drove to St John's and had a small poke around.  St John's is not a big place and blissfully it was free of cruise ships the day we went, because otherwise it would have been mobbed. After a nice lunch of Caribbean specialties, we crossed to the south side of the island and explored English Harbour and Nelson's Dockyard. The Antiguans wanted a name to entice tourists, so they named the old English fort and dockyards after the saviour of England, Admiral Horatio Nelson. Nelson was posted in Antigua early in his career, but ironically he hated it!

There were very few things we were determined to do this holiday, snorkelling being the main thing, but when we read about the Canopy Tour in the rainforest that quickly became a must do activity. This involved getting into complicated harnesses before flinging ourselves out into the open expanses between the trees on zip lines. We did a total of eleven lines, with the longest being 328 feet long over the gorge. It was great living out Tarzan-esque fantasies in this very natural setting.  

Most of our other land based activities surrounded beaches, so read our next post Antigua - Water and Sand for those adventures.

Antigua really was a phenomenal place and the perfect opportunity to slow down, relax and yet still have some good adventures. The only real regret was that we didn't have longer to enjoy it all!

For more images of Antigua visit our Antigua Gallery.