Christopher
Columbus landed on Antigua (pronounced An-tee-ga) in 1493 and named the island
after the Church of Santa Maria de la Antigua in Seville. In the 18th century the British
Royal Navy chose Antigua as its base and it ultimately developed into one of Great
Britain’s most important military bases in the Caribbean. When we visited the island in 2009 we pretty
much covered the military siteseeing spots as we had explored Nelson’s
Dockyard, named after the legendary Admiral Horatio Nelson.
So,
this time we thought we would see the other thing that Antigua is known for…..365
beaches…one for every day of the year!
We joined a small group from our Cruise Critic rollcall and headed out
for a day of relaxation on a beach.
It
didn’t all go as planned as our group had a hard time finding our driver (there
are 4 ships in port today), and then we find out that the beach we were
originally scheduled to go to was doing renovation of its facilities so another
beach had been selected by the driver.
As a result, we headed in a different direction and what little
siteseeing of island spots we thought we would see, we did not. Oh well, we had seen them before. This was also supposed to be a day where we
would be able to snorkel. There was
little to see snorkeling at this new location, so we decided to skip that. Instead we bobbed around in the ocean waves
and lounged around under the scattered clouds, occasional raindrops, and
sun.
Weather changes very fast on these
islands as the winds carry the clouds and rain away as fast as they come upon
us. Actually, the sun is extremely hot
when it is beating down and the occasional clouds are a welcome!
This
is a very colorful island. Houses are
painted in every color of the rainbow.
Some of them are kept in very good condition; others, are not!
We
enjoyed our relaxing day in Antigua and as we set sail, we look forward to our
next island….Barbados!
No comments:
Post a Comment