Eterno Dia PhotographyWinter Blues: Experience The Teal, Azure, Turquoise and Indigo of Antigua
Posted on February 4, 2018
View from the water at the Jolly Beach Resort
When I think about Antigua, I think of the color blue. The shallow water surrounding the island is a florescent turquoise like nothing else I’ve ever seen before. It’s so blue that even the seagull’s bellies look turquoise from underneath as they soar over the water. The teal of the slightly deeper waters where we saw starfish below the surface and swam with stingrays was everything you’ve imagined seeing in a travel brochure to paradise.
Jolly Beach Resort
The deep, choppy, indigo waters on the Atlantic side of the island are mysterious and exhilarating. I was recently chatting with a co-worker and fellow travel enthusiast about a trip to Antigua we took a few years back. While bragging, I went to show her some of the photos I have online and realized that I’ve hardly posted any photos of my trip, which is a real injustice to Antigua and all of you. So its time for me to tell you why you need to go here and experience the rainbow of blues you’ll find in Antigua.
Seagulls at the beach
Sunset at the Shirley Heights lookout point party
Husband and I were looking for something a bit more special when we booked this one. We’d been to Mexico a few times. Cuba and Jamaica were beautiful representations of the Caribbean, but for this trip, we wanted something a bit more unique; a bit less popular. We had it narrowed down to Barbados and Antigua. Antigua came up for a few reasons. It’s not that hard to get to. Lots of smaller, less popular destinations have poor connections and require lots of additional transfers to get to. Antigua has direct flights from Toronto at just over 4.5 hours long. While Antigua is tropical, its in a weird zone in the West Indies that makes it a bit less humid and more dry than a lot of other islands in the Caribbean. It opens up travel dates a bit more with less of a rainy season. For that reason, its also a bit different geographically and definitely has a dry season where things look desert-like and brown. Antigua boasts a slogan of “365 beaches; one for each day of the year”. That combined with a glass of wine and searching photos of the sunsets and husband and I had our minds made up.
Looking west: Endless sky
The mysterious indigo of the Atlantic side of the island
Antigua did not disappoint and I’m ashamed I have not shared more photos of this truly special island. The Caribbean has a certain charm that is unlike anywhere else. It really is a thing; time moves slower, interactions are more friendly, life seems to be lived more fully and authentically. Here, in Antigua, it was still something more than that; the people were so warm and relaxed, the geography was so interesting, the wildlife was abundant and beautiful, and the ocean and beaches; simply stunning.
Swimming with stingrays
We went in June, which is during Antigua’s low tourist season. That only meant that tours ran on a less frequent schedule, were smaller and more intimate and the resort was slightly less busy. Antigua isn’t bustling though no matter when you go, not the same way as Cancun, Puerto Vallarta or Havana. It’s less touristy and more simple. Some very picky people might say it’s a bit run down in spots, but that’s the true Caribbean; chipped paint from the salty, humid air, and a more relaxed way of living.
Exploring caves on Barbuda
We were worried upon booking Antigua that we wouldn’t have enough to do during our week there. We love the beach but we also love to explore when we’re visiting a new place. Antigua is one of two very small islands in the nation of Antigua and Barbuda. I wrote about Barbuda (the smaller of the two islands) previously due to the direct hit the island took by hurricane Irma during the summer storm season of 2017. You can find that article here. Barbuda has a population of about 2000 people and will likely take years to rebuild after the damage caused by Irma. Besides the hurricane, Barbuda previously made news because the late Princess Diana used to vacation here with Harry and Will. Antigua, the bigger of the two, is also a tiny island. With an area of only 281 kilometers and a population of 80,000, it’s just quaint. However, Antigua has so much to do; it’s steeped in history.
As a former British colony, there is history galore, both good and bad, from a political view. Shirley Heights, an old British military lookout is where the tall sailing ships of the late 1700s and early 1800s used to dock. You can actually picture them floating there in the harbor in your mind’s eye. The capital of St. Johns is a livelier place than a lot of the other spots on the island and is where the cruise ships dock. There is just so much to do here: shopping, snorkeling at one of the countless reefs, relaxing on one of the numerous white sand beaches, swimming with sting rays, speedboat tours of the island, and these are only just a handful of the adventure you can find here. Tours that we went on all included lots of information about the history of the islands.
SCUBA diving
The food is as fresh as you can get; seafood, fruit, root vegetables, and there are so many places to eat, the trouble is deciding were to go. Antigua is a paradise, a natural wonder and one of the most special places you might ever visit. The wildlife is stunning: just the sheer variety of birds alone is remarkable, but then when you get in the ocean, there is still more to see; stingrays, fish, jellyfish, nurse sharks, and turtles. This is a wildlife paradise.
snorkeling near Nelson’s Dockyard
The Pillars of Hercules
I’ll break down my Antigua trip into a few different blog posts over the next few weeks as it wouldn’t be fair to anyone to just do one post. There is just so much beauty on these two little islands. Please check back to see more. If you have questions or comments, feel free to get in touch. If you are considering curing your winter blues with a trip south this winter, I highly recommend Antigua and Barbuda to you.
Jumby Bay
An secluded beach on Barbuda
Paradise
Barbuda: The Uncut Jewel Of The Caribbean
Posted on September 7, 2017
View from the Two Foot Bay caves.
Most of you probably never heard of Barbuda before this week. Thanks to Hurricane Irma, many of you probably have now. I have known of Barbuda for a few years now and had the privilege of visiting Barbuda and sister Island Antigua in 2015. My husband and I love the Caribbean; white sand beaches, palm trees and a laid back atmosphere. We’d been to Jamaica for our honeymoon, Cuba, and Mexico a handful of times (though it’s not actually the Caribbean). For this trip we were looking for something more special; a place not a lot of people we knew had already been to. In the end we chose Antigua and Barbuda (pronounced An-TEE-ga and bar-BEW-da). Some of you have heard of Antigua, the larger and more populated of the two sister islands. They’re located in the Leeward islands, part of the lesser Antilles and nearly as far east as you can go before you hit Africa. Antigua has a population of about 80,000 but it’s sister, about 40 miles north-ish only has about 1650 residents.
Antigua- Jolly beach
Antigua is stunning. White sand beaches (365: one for each day of the year), calm, turquoise water that’s nearly fluorescent, rolling hills, thick forests, and an abundance of flora and fauna that knocked my socks off. Anyone who knows me personally is sick to death of the stories of the amazing hummingbirds, scuba diving and steel drums bands playing during dinner that made me cry because everything was “just so perfect”.
We had so many amazing adventures in Antigua that I’ll definitely get into in future blogs (the lookout at Shirley Heights, Stingray City, A circumnavigation of the entire island – all of which I HIGHLY recommend) and one that I’ll never forget is the trip to the sister isle of Barbuda. We found it in the list of available tours and myself, my husband and another couple wanted to go. The resort tour rep gave us a few options on how to get to the tiny island, and we all unanimously agreed to take the ferry that the locals take. He implored us to take the luxurious catamaran or sailboat instead, warning us that it may not be the best option, but we all wanted to take the journey authentically, and see things from a local perspective.
The ferry to Barbuda.
The ferry ride was 1.5 hours each way, and admittedly not the smoothest ride. I was glad to have anti-nausea medication (of which I always bring a lot to share) because even some of the locals were seasick. I loved every minute of it. The ferry was loaded up with boxes and care packages for friends and family members on Barbuda that were simply labeled with first names, because everyone on Barbuda knows everyone. Passengers included a group of Antiguan school children and their teachers going for a field trip, some Barbudans going back after a visit to the main island and some Antiguans going to see relatives who live on Barbuda. There was even the most small town scene of someone trying to get a package of something “illegal” to Barbuda that was nearly comical in its casualness.
Once on Barbuda, six of us (we were nearly the only tourists on the island with it being off season) were whisked around to see the sand mine (yes, they send sand to places that don’t have any), the village of Codrington, and then to the Codrington Lagoon to see the largest frigate bird sanctuary in the Western Hemisphere.
Young frigate birds
We spent part of the morning boating around the quiet lagoon with a tour guide, taking photos of the birds and marveling at the upside down jellyfish. We were then driven up to Barbuda’s “highlands”, the caves at Two Foot Bay, a very short drive from Codrington. We had time to explore these magnificent limestone caves, and climb to Barbuda’s highest point (which is only 38 meters, as Barbuda is very flat) and see the stunning lookout views. This is also where you can find the remains of Codrington House, the ruins of a family estate dating to the 1700’s. The Codgrinton brothers who leased land from the UK ran sugar plantations, had ties to piracy and the slave trade.
From there we were taken to the pink sand beach (again only a short drive away) for an amazing lunch at a beach side restaurant and then time on a basically deserted beach. We sunbathed, swam and explored. We didn’t see the pink sand that you may have heard Barbuda is famous for (it’s seasonal) but that didn’t matter at all. It was stunning.
We explored the nearby River Martello Tower, an old military fort built in 1745, one of many of these types of fort around the islands. We met a local there who was walking around the area while waiting to catch the ferry back to Antigua. He gave us his take on the history of the area and showed us “sea grapes”, a small, edible fruit that grows on vines right on the beach.
The River Fort Martello tower dating to 1745
We finally had to drag ourselves from the beach to catch the ferry for the choppy ride back to Antigua. More seasickness, some people slept, others chatted and gossiped, I stuck my head out the window to catch the breeze and splashes of the sea in my face while 80’s pop hits played on the speakers (including Don’t Rock The Boat, which I found cute and ironic).
Heading back to Antigua
I really didn’t know quite what to expect on our day trip to Barbuda, but I was hoping for an adventure and boy did it deliver, especially based on it’s size and population. Barbuda isn’t shiny and sparkly like the larger island of Antigua and some of the other more well known Caribbean islands. It’s largely undeveloped and has a very small town feel. It’s definitely not modern. Everyone knows everyone and life seems relatively quiet. Barbuda has very little tourism development and hardly any large resorts. That’s what’s so unique and charming about it. It’s unspoiled and pure. Innocent. That’s also what makes me so sad when I think about the devastation Irma has caused her.
The stunning beach and clear waters
The island was without any contact from the outside world for nearly 24 hours after being hit directly by category 5 Irma dozens of times larger than the island. How frightening it must have been for those poor souls to be hunkered down in the dead of night with their homes coming apart around them? To be stranded for so long, not knowing how long until help arrived? Who will come to her aid with 90% or more of her infrastructure obliterated? Barbuda is not comprised of wealthy people. Most houses are simple. Most of the ways of life are simple. It won’t be simple for them any longer. I can only hope that Barbuda (and St. Maarten and many other Caribbean nations affected by this hurricane) will get the help that they desperately need to rebuild and maintain their way of life in the wake of this devastation. If you have even $10 to spare, I hope you will donate to a relief organization who can help them. No amount is too small. And I hope that you will be lucky enough to visit the unassuming little jem that is Barbuda, at least once in your life.
Eterno Dia Photography 