Antigua

Antigua, West Indies

What a gorgeous day we’ve had today.  The ship docked in a great location, a bit like Sydney Harbour with everything just off the gangway. It was very busy as another cruise ship was in town too. We were off the ship rather early and headed to the beach. We are one of those families that like to “find” our way to our chosen destination. Most people get a taxi or bus but not us. We walk for miles to experience the character of the town. Antigua is very charming in a scruffy kind of way. As we walked the streets heading to the beach the locals were friendly and helpful with directions. 

Some of the areas were quite run down and rather untidy with an accumulation of rubbish. The housing often being tiny and I mean  teeny tiny little weather board shacks, some just plonked on top of concrete blocks looking like they’d blow over in a strong wind. We wandered through some dubious looking areas and questioning Grahame’s judgement on the tourist beach we were supposed to be heading too. None the less beyond the disheveled and ramshackle streets a beautiful almost deserted beach was beckoning. Gorgeous clear blue waters and soft white sands. The boys and I stripped to our togs and dived in. Apart from a few locals, some horse and would you believe some cows, we had the beach to ourselves. It was well worth the long hot walk. Even though there was no snorkeling the boys enjoyed swimming for a few hours. We managed to get a taxi ride back as one has just dropped off some other tourists.

We came back to our home on the sea for lunch before heading out to explore the local town. It was lovely and charming as I said . The cricket was also on England verses West Indies which quite a few passengers went to. With two ships in town the bars and cafes were doing a roaring trade and the WiFi almost impossible to use. A really lovely day that ticked all the boxes on what we wanted to do here. Off to the Azores tonight which is off the coast of Portugal.