Day Six: Antigua

Today was slightly different to all the other islands that we visisted in that we had our trip in the afternoon, which meant we could have a lazy morning, and a wander round the port, which was a nice change. Unfortunately, the port area wasn't so much Caribbean, more Harlem in the 1970's! We were hassled by everyone we came across, be it for a taxi, a trip to a 'secret' beach (whether you would ever come back from that, it wasn't clear), or someone selling you everything you could never wish for, including a chap selling Bibles and giving you a free preach as you tried, and failed, to walk past him.


There was another american liner in, so the port was probably more busy than normal, in for the extra trade that 2 cruise liners brought, but that was the first (of two) ports where you were getting indimidated by the yocals.



We made a hasty retreat back to the boat after getting lost round the small streets, trying to find signposts to the main shopping area, which I doubt existed as all the signs pointed in the wrong direction, and getting the odd 'you're not from around here' looks from the local people.



Our trip in the afternoon was again a general look around the island that took in as much as we could handle in 3 hours, so the first few stops, as we were driven through up the mountains, was Dows Hill, which is right at the top of the island and from which you can see pretty much everything the island has to offer. Now, apart from the cricket, Antigua is famous for being the home of Eric Clapton. Eric used to live right in the heart of the main bay, however the damned locals only went and built within a mile of his house, so he had to move all the way to the top of a cliff face just down the road, as you do.





Eric also owns a rehab centre that is free for any Antiguan. This may seem like he's doing this out of the generosity of his own good heart and being charitable in the process, however as our tour guide explained, as Whitney Houston comes here once a year for 6 weeks, she pays for the rehab centre to keep going, so he's probably making a tidy profit out of the old warbler!




Next up, Shirley Heights, which sounds as if they really really like Shirley, whoever she was, but in fact it was a principle fortification used by the British Fleet who were stationed at English Harbour. From here you can look down onto arguably the best part of Antigua, Nelsons Dockyard.




















(and if you look very very closely, the grey building centre-right, backing onto the hill is Mr C's old place)


This is the worlds last Georgian dockyard still used today and is named after Admiral Nelson, who ruled the roost in the Leeward Islands from 1784-87 and was used to maintain the Royal Navy ships that used to capture valuable sugar island and thus expand good old Blighty's Commonwealth. Nowadays its used to maintain and repair various yachts and boats, and is also useful in hurricane season as the dock is landlocked, and so protects the multi-millionnaires from losing their hobbies!


























The dockyard itself is an amazing sight, as you can see, and has kept pretty much everything that was built orginally, including a nice large bar that was used by the sailors to drink in ye olde times, which was a great place to stop off for a free rum!



Miracle on the 25th Lane


Right, now onto the normal blog bit, and on Sunday me, Kate, Ben, Marcus, Jenny, Gareth and Dan went bowling in rubery, where 2 miracles occured. Firstly, after over 5 years of not going bowling, both me and Dan suddenly found that we could bowl, and bowl pretty damn well at times, in fact Dan won the first game and only lost out on the second game due to the second miracle. He found he could fly......actually fly! He even had a run up and a skip before throwing the ball and himself down the lane, at one stage actually becoming horizontal before crashing to the ground!


Anyway a good night was had by all, and we ended up getting back for around 11-ish. This weekend also saw the demise of the mighty Villa to the paltry Wigan, who to be fair were the only team that turned up on the day, so Villa need a win at West Ham to be guaranteed an Intertoto spot (back door to europe), and hope Everton muck up against Newcastle at home, to sneak into 5th spot and get an automatic UEFA Cup spot, so bring on the weekend!