St John's, Antigua

We dock at St John's, Antigua - home of Sir Viv Richards and Curtly Ambrose. After we meet up with Jenny, an English lady who has lived here for 34 years. She organises for an 'official' taxi driver to be our guide for the day at a rate of $40 per hour. We head off with Zeffi who happily relates all the local history as we go. Antigua has a sister island, Barbuda, which lies 35 miles north west and has a population of 85,000. It has 365 beaches - one for every day of the year - and as we head down the road lined by mahogany trees he tells us that they gained independence from Britain in 1981 and that their main industries of sugar cane and cotton production have now died out due to the young people being unwilling to work hard - thankfully tourism keeps the economy humming. The last hurricane to hit the area was in 1999 but the worst was in 1995 when the island was closed for nine weeks and they were without electricity for seven weeks.


Slavery was abolished in 1834 with slaves being brought in from Africa. Religion plays a large part in the lives of this community and as we travel through All Saints village and then Liberta, Zeffi tells us there is 11 churches in that small village alone, of all denominations. We head to the Lookout at Shirley Heights and the view is truly spectacular. We visit Falmouth Harbour where we see the remains of the officers quarters, the Blockhouse ruins, the Interpretation Centre and then we end up at Nelson's Dockyard.

At Nelson's Bay there is much to see not the least being the enormous yachts and boats berthed at this great spot. We have the most enormous lobsters for lunch at the Admiral's Inn before heading back.