Antigua - Water and Sand

Being on an island with 365 beaches means you are rather spoilt for choice. The beaches really are spectacular with many having the light soft sand and turquoise waters that you expect from the Caribbean. Many of the beaches are completely secluded and some can only be reached by boat. One thing we appreciated was that many of the beaches are not built up at all - maybe a lunch shack or a small resort - but nothing that really detracted from the natural beauty. 

Our biggest interest in this holiday was snorkelling and that was a big reason for our choice of resort. At the mouth of Nonsuch Bay sits Green Island which is pretty much ringed by coral reefs. We went out to Green Island four times, though the two trips early in the week weren't great due to the sea being churned up by Sandy. We still saw amazing varieties of sea life including a stunning school of Blue Tangs, a barracuda, an octopus suctioning up food from the coral, jelly fish (Cora's favourite), a huge lobster, a gazillion conch shells and some very curious needle nose fish.The conch shells were truly in the thousands along one stretch of the island and people come from all over Antigua to collect them for food.

One of the best things about going to Green Island was the seclusion. There were several different beaches you could be be dropped off at, but the best one for snorkelling was Ten Pound Beach which was home to a couple of palm trees and not much else for that proper deserted island feel! The only problem with this beach is that the tour companies often stopped there for snorkelling and lunch whilst doing a circumnavigation of Antigua. So on one visit we had a couple of hours of about 30 people visiting our little beach and the peace and seclusion it offered but soon they were on their merry way. We went back to that beach two more times at the end of the week, including the last morning we were there, and the visibility had improved markedly and we had some amazing fish experiences.

There is another tiny island out in the bay - Little Bird Island - which doesn't have any beaches or visitors but Shakimba from watersports was kind enough to get us close enough to spend a few hours snorkelling around the reefs there. There we saw a couple of moray eels, the octopus and more spectacular fish, including a Porcupine fish. We also had the interest of a few resident pelicans every time we popped our heads up.  It was great being able to snorkel around the island in an hour just kind of drifting with the currents. 

We had heard really good things about Cades Reef off the southwest side of Antigua, so we were keen to explore it for a change of scenery from Green Island. The only way to get there is via boat, so we took an all day catamaran tour which sailed along the whole western, or Caribbean, side of the island. It was a really relaxed day and if you want to get away from it all, there are few better places to do that than from the netting at the front of a catamaran as it sails across the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. 

The snorkelling itself was good and the visibility was top rate. We saw a whole host of different fish than we had seen at Green Island and also a reef shark! That was a bit of a highlight, though Cora wasn't quite sure how to get CW's attention without taking her eyes off the shark! The current was fairly strong so after an hour of snorkelling we returned to the boat for a well deserved lunch before spending an hour moored on Turners Beach.  We had been there the day before and had a delicious curried goat, a local speciality, but it was nice to explore it again and experience it diving off the back of the boat.  It was a great way to see the island and to spend a day truly relaxing.

In the course of exploring the island we came across several other beaches, with the best two being Ffryes Beach and Half Moon Bay. Ffryes Beach is on the Caribbean coast and was recommended to us by one of the employees at the resort. It is off the beaten track, though still very accessible. We arrived to find a catamaran tour having a full on beach BBQ, complete with steel drum band, but they left within an hour of us arriving and the rest of the afternoon we had the quarter mile long stretch of beach to ourselves.

The sea was wonderful and the sand extremely soft, but what made the experience for us was the seclusion, wonderful sunset and Dennis' restaurant. Dennis is a local and for the last seven years he has been running a restaurant on a point at the far end of the beach. We didn't know it was there, but had seen some people wandering up the hill around lunchtime and thought it might be a bit of a beach bar. We went up mid-afternoon and found a spectacular view out over the next bay to the north, as well as some lovely rum punch! We came back later for dinner and had some lovely Caribbean food.

Half Moon Bay was only about ten minutes from our resort and gets its name from the rather distinctive shape of the cove. As it faces the Atlantic, there are some nice breakers rolling in, and if you walk all the way out to the rocks at the edge of the bay you can see exactly how powerful water is.  We went to this beach once at sunset and once in the morning and both times really enjoyed the experience. It was a bit of a shame we couldn't spend a full day there, but we had limited time with our little 4wd car so had to pick and choose.

We went to about ten beaches overall and had the chance to snorkel on five of our days there, so we had plenty of opportunities to truly experience the beautiful water and sand of this lovely little island of Antigua.

For more images of Antigua visit our Antigua Gallery.