ANTIGUA

Antigua states that they have 365 beaches, one for every day of the year.  From a yachties perspective, Antigua has more beautiful, protected anchorages than most other islands.  Antigua is famous for their Sailing racing week in April of each year. 

English Harbor:  From the Galleon beach, we hiked the Lookout Trail to Shirley Heights for sunset.  Shirley Heights is named after Governor General Shirley.  It has spectacular views of English and Falmouth harbors.  Today, it’s a bar and restaurant with great steel and reggae bands.

Nelson’s DockYard at Falmouth Harbor:  In 1745, work begun on the dockyard.   Nelson took over as naval commander after Sir Richard Hughes, blinded himself in one eye while chasing a cockroach with a fork.  Today, both English Harbor and Falmouth Harbor are managed by the Nelson’s Dockyard National Park.  This is not only the yachting capital of Antigua but also a major Caribbean yachting center.  It has a fantastic free museum and many old restored buildings to visit.  From here, we hiked to the point and also to Pigeon beach.

Following the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, rum acquired the nickname “Nelson’s Blood” because sailors believed that Nelson’s body had been placed in a casket of rum to preserve his body on the trip back to England.  Nelson’s body had actually been placed in a cask of French Brandy with camphor and myrrh.  Nevertheless, rum retained its moniker as “Nelson’s Blood” and served as the inspiration for several sailors’ hymns.

These pillars were once part of a sail loft.   On top of the pillars was a roof.  Boats would come into the waterway, unload their sails and placed above so men could work on the sails.

Figure Heads are wooden decorations found at the prow of ships.  The traditional view for centuries was that women had no place at sea.  The only woman happily accepted on board by many sailors was the ship’s Figurehead.  Despite of women being viewed as unlucky aboard a ship, women were perversely viewed as the best navigators and the eyes of the female figurehead were thought to be able to find a way through the seas when lost.    Many female figureheads were bare-breasted as it was thought bare breasts would shame a stormy sea into calm. 

Ships Biscuits:  At the time, sailors ate many biscuits, officially called bread, was also called Hardtack.  It was very hard at first but as a voyage went on it became soft and crumby, partly due to the weevils that ate it and lived within it.  It was customary to tap the biscuit hard to stun the weevils before eating. 

This rowboat crossed the Atlantic ocean

Jolly Harbor:  We went to Jolly Harbor to meet up with cruiser friends of ours that we hadn’t seen in about a year (Krista,Phil,Brenda & Al).  We also met up with Melissa & Dan who we didn’t see since last spring in Guadeloupe. 

 CELEBRATING AL'S BIRTHDAY (NOTICE AL & PHIL SMOKING CUBAN CIGARS)

JOLLY BAY

AL'S BIRTHDAY PRESENTS.  CUBAN CIGARS AND COCK SOUP MIX, HA HA HA

Biking with new friends Janice and Dave on s/v Livin’ Life who are headed south to Grenada for the summer as many of our friends will be during hurricane season.  We had hoped they would follow us to Bonaire but that’s for another time. 

Six of us rented a car and toured the island.  We drove up Fig Tree Drive and visited the Wallings reservoir.  There are a couple of hiking trails there with signs that describe the trees. 

Devil’s Bridge is a beautiful natural rock bridge over water with a blow hole nearby

Harmony Hall is a beautiful restaurant with an exquisite art gallery.  At one of the bars, you can pour yourself a shot of rum for free, in fact, nobody was there….we could of drank the whole bottle !

HARMONY HALL

ART AT HARMONY HALL

The bananaquit is a species of passerine bird of uncertain relation. It is tentatively placed in the tanager family, but classified as incertae sedis by other authorities such as the American Ornithologists' Union

We enjoyed learning about donkeys and brushing them at the Donkey Sanctuary

Deep Bay  is a charming, uncrowded anchorage with a nice long beach and minimal people ashore.  We snorkeled on the wreck of the Andes.  This three-masted iron barque was sailing from Trinidad with a load of pitch in 1905.  When it got to Antigua, the crew noticed smoke rising from one of the hollow masts and suspected the motion of the boat had caused enough friction in the cargo to start a fire.  Having hazardous cargo, they were refused permission to go into St-John’s (capitol), so they anchored in Deep Bay.  When they opened the cargo hatches to deal with the problem, the infusion of the fresh air caused the pitch to burst into uncontrollable flames.  It is now encrusted with sponges and coral and provides shelter for big schools of small fish.  It was worth snorkeling on this wreck.

We hiked to  Fort Barrington that has commanding views all around.  It was a battery and observation post from Nelson’s time.  

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: VIEW OF ST-JOHN'S, SALT BAY & DEEP BAY

Great Bird Island and other outer Islands, namely Rabbit, Lobster, Readhead and Exchange Islands are all protected from the east by a series of reefs, barrier islands and rocks.  The shapes of the rocks provide drama to the view and one of them, Hell’s Gate, has a hole right through it. Great Bird Island has two, 100 feet blow holes that fall right into the sea.  This is a wild, uninhabited area, I call paradise.  There are very few boats and a couple of nice small beaches.  There are many Red Billed Tropic Birds that have long white tails.  It is the only home of what might be the rarest and most endangered snake in the world, the Antigua racer (Alsophis antiguae).

THERE WERE NUMEROUS RED BILLED TROPIC BIRDS AT GREAT BIRD ISLAND (thx wiki for the picture)

GREAT BIRD ISLAND

BONES OF BIRDS

LUNCH SPOT ON GREAT BIRD ISLAND (PART OF ANTIGUA)

ONE OF TWO BEACHES ON GREAT BIRD ISLAND

Next to Great Bird Island is Hell’s Gate Island with a most beautiful arch.  I’m glad we were rock climbers because it took some moves to get on top.  Unfortunately a big piece of rock broke off and landed on Tim’s leg and toe.  He only sustained a few scratches, phew.  Because of that, we decided that it wasn’t a good idea to walk on the arch.

HELL'S GATE

OUR DINK ANCHORED AT HELL'S GATE

NOT SURE WHAT THESE CREATURES ARE, TIM SAYS THEY ARE ALIVE !

IT WAS POSSIBLE TO SWIM FROM OUR DINGHY TO HELL'S GATE

VIEW FROM HELL'S GATE.  OUR ANCHORAGE IN THE BACKGROUND

Long Island, Jumby Bay, is a small resort island with villas and a few private homes.  All resorts are exclusive and very high end.  A security guard stopped us before we got to a private home.  Gomez told us that 1 night’s stay in a villa is about $5000.00 US.  He said if we wanted to we could reserve a table for diner.  He said it would cost us about $500.00.  OK then, sure, on a cruiser’s budget, we can afford that, ha ha ha.

We returned to Jolly Harbor for four main reasons:  1. Laundry 2. Grocery shopping  3. Superbowl  4. Clear out to go to Barbuda.  I managed to get 20 cruisers together and reserve front row seats at the Crow’s Nest Bar & Restaurant to watch the Superbowl game.  They have a projector and large screen.  Go Broncos !  I'll never look at football the same way again.  Krista kept seeing the players do ballerina moves, thanks Krista !

Shell Beach Boatyard at the airport is worth mentioning.  This facility is used by super yacht owners arriving by private jet.  This boatyard is only a few hundred feet from the airport.  There is an exclusive facility for looking after private jets.  They park nearby, the crew and passengers do not go anywhere near the main airport.  Customs and immigration are done in privacy at the plane or in the ‘special’ office.  The crew and luggage drop them off at their waiting tender at the marina.  GADS !  Can’t these people do anything on their own?

Next blog:  Barbuda.