Two days before our 50th wedding anniversary, Big Eagle and I were up around 3:30 in the morning getting ready to head to the airport and begin our week-long celebration in Antigua!  We first flew to Miami and connected there to continue on to Antigua.  It was late afternoon when we arrived at our resort: The Blue Water Resort & Spa on the north side of the island!

Our Room

After a warm reception in the lobby which included being handed two water bottles with our names on them and served a cold, refreshing  beverage, we were taken by golf cart to our room in Villa 3.

The Flora and Fauna

We spent our first full day exploring the resort.  I was so taken by the grounds!  They were just beautiful every direction you looked!  I took so many pictures of the nature in the place!

 

Our Anniversary Day!

Friday the 9th was our anniversary!  Big Eagle had scheduled a private driving tour of the island for the day.  Terry, our driver, picked us up at the resort at 10 that morning.  It happened to also be a holiday on Antigua: V.C. Bird Day.  It is the birthday of Sir Vere Cornwall Bird, who was the first prime minister of Antigua and is considered the father of the nation.  For that reason, some of the places we would have seen were closed, but most were still open, and we had a very interesting, educational, and entertaining tour!

We drove down to the capital, St. John’s first, but traffic was heavy there, and streets were blocked off for a parade.  So we drove to the east side of the island and saw Devil’s Bridge.

We also went to Nelson’s Dockyard at English Harbor on the southeast side of the island.  There Terry gave us some time on our own to explore the history of the dockyard and observe the ships.

 

We then drove up to the Shirley Heights Lookout, which is a restored military lookout and gun battery with amazing views!

 

Next, Terry took us to lunch at a local spot called Caribbean Taste to try some food the locals eat.

I had a local cuisine found at the bottom of the menu: Fungee with codfish in Tomato Sauce and Vegetables:

We had brought along our bathing suits because we had been told to do so, and after lunch Terry took us to Galleon Beach for a refreshing swim.  It was really nice!

After that, Terry drove west and south to take us through the Antigua rain forest!  Did not know it existed, but it does!  So much fruit growing everywhere!  Beautiful region!  Along the way, he stopped, got out, and picked this bay leaf!

I use bay leaves in my gumbo and a few other dishes, but had never seen one growing!  He told us they call them Christmas bushes there.  He said they give a cinnamon smell to the kitchen during the holidays.

The next stop was at a roadside stand to taste black pineapple.  It is a super sweet, delicious pineapple!  Since Big Eagle doesn’t like pineapple, I had the whole sample to myself!  Yum!

When our tour was over, Terry dropped us back off at the resort.  We rested a bit, then cleaned up and got ready for dinner.  Our concierge had recommended Le Bistro, a local Italian restaurant, so we had her book us a reservation there.

It was really a nice, cozy little restaurant, and one of my favorite things was that they seated us next to an open window, and we could hear all of the night animal sounds as we dined!

 

 

After dinner, we returned to the resort, had a drink at the bar, then went outside to sit and listen to the steel drum band.

When we decided to call it a night, we grabbed a golf cart back to our villa.  Upon entering we found a bottle of champagne chilling and a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries and fruit!  What an unexpected surprise!  So nice!

It had been a full and happy day!

 

Walking Food Tour

The next day was Saturday, and Big Eagle had reserved us a spot on a walking food tour in St. John’s (Antigua’s capital).  It got off to a really slow start, as the guide was not even at our meeting place until a good 20 minutes or more past the time we were supposed to meet.  She also was not wearing the blue shirt we had been told to look for.  There was also a young man accompanying her who she said was a trainee.  She told us there was supposed to be one other couple on the tour who had not shown up, so we waited a while more for them.  Finally, she started the tour without them.

First stop was the B-Hive where we had shrimp fritters with a mayonnaise-type dip.  Big Eagle is not a fan of mayo, so he was not enthusiastic about the food, but I liked it.  Our guide left us there with her trainee while she supposedly went to find this mysterious other couple that was supposed to also be on the tour.  She was gone a L-O-N-G time.  I tried to engage in conversation with the trainee, but he didn’t have much to say.  When he did talk, he was so soft-spoken, it was hard to hear him.  That was going to have to change if he expected to be successful as a guide!

This guy was beating a drum on the thoroughfare just outside the restaurant, so that provided some entertainment, but that got old after a while.  At this point, Big Eagle and I were not impressed with this tour, and we were wondering if we’d made a mistake.  The guide did finally show back up, but did not come over to where we were sitting.  She instead stood at the counter on her phone for what seemed like a long time.  At long last, she instructed the trainee to take us to our next location.

It was a place called Cutie’s.  We were seated, and our guide showed up after a bit and gave us the history behind the restaurant.

We had fungee for the second time in Antigua.  But this time it was served with mussels in a wine sauce.  I liked it better than the one we’d had the day before.  Big Eagle liked the other one better.  While we were eating, my granddaughter Helen called, and I Facetimed with her for a bit.  That was fun!

Things on the tour seemed to pick up after that.  Our main guide was still missing-in-action a lot, but we moved along at a better pace.

At Roti King, we had chicken roti.  It was good, but we were starting to get full, so we couldn’t eat it all.

Then we went to Brownie’s Bakery, where our main guide again gave us the history of the restaurant.

Here we had what was called a Bun and Cheese.  It was literally cheese and butter on a bun.  Again, we ate about a quarter of what we were given, gave some to the guides to eat, and threw away the rest.  We were full, and this was basically just a cheese sandwich.

 

Patty Delight was our next stop.

Here we had what our guide called a Jamaican patty with an Antiguan twist.  Now THIS was really good!  The crust was flaky, and the beef was seasoned with just the right amount of spice.  We ate it all even though we were so full!  That’s how good it was.

 

Finally it was time for our last stop.  A place called One Stone.  Here they served only vegetarian food.

 

We each had a spinach ball, and it was really pretty good.  Big Eagle is not a fan of cooked spinach, though, so he gave his to the guides to eat.  I had a cucumber water with mine.  Very good, too!

So it all turned out okay.  As far as taking us to places the locals frequent and having enough food to eat, I would give them an A+.  But when it came to organization and personability, they were definitely below par.

That night we had dinner at our resort.  They have three restaurants.  The fanciest one is called The Cove, and that’s where we ate that night.  I had to take a picture of the light-up menus.  Cool!

 

Down Days

So Saturday was a heavy food day!  The next two days we had nothing planned, except to relax in this beautiful resort.  Sunday we spent mostly around the pool right at our villa.  It was so relaxing, I didn’t even take any pictures!

Monday we finally made our way down to the beach at our resort!  The week before, the day after our arrival, it was unusually windy, so we didn’t try the beach.  Then the next two days we were busy with excursions.  Not sure why we didn’t go down there Sunday instead of hanging by the pool all day.  It was SO relaxing at the beach!

 

It was nice to get our toes in the sand.  Wait staff came by to take drink orders.  It was much more fun taking a dip in the sea than the pool.  The waves were fun!

Later in the afternoon, we took a walk from our villa over to the spa just to check it out.  We got a better look at this old sugar mill, which was right behind our villa on the way to the spa.

We saw these all over the island back on Friday during our driving tour.  Terry had explained to us that they are relics from the days that sugar plantations dominated the island.  I had been wondering what that structure was on our resort, and his info resolved that for me.

On our walk back from the spa, Big Eagle stands at the top of the stairs in front of our villa.

 

These water stations were located all throughout the resort, which was super convenient.  The water was nice and cold, too.  Perfect!

 

Last Day

Tuesday was our last full day in Antigua.  We were looking forward to a private yacht sunset cruise gifted to us for our anniversary by Danny and Cara!  A driver picked us up early in the afternoon and took us down to Jolly Harbor where we would board the yacht!

As we walked from the parking lot to the dock, we saw this weird tree!

It’s called a sausage tree.  And those big things hanging from it were also littering the ground.  I picked one up, and it was heavy!  I’d hate to be standing under the tree when one of those fell!

As we approached the dock, Simon and Amanda (the yacht owners) met us and helped us onto the boat.  In no time, we were motoring out of Jolly Harbor.

 

Simon and Amanda were wonderful hosts!  We had worn suits under our clothes, because normally their guests are able to disembark to enjoy a beach or to snorkel.  However on this particular day there were swells which prevented Simon from getting close enough to a beach.  Also the sand was churned up in the water, keeping it from being clear enough for snorkeling.  Simon told us that normally the water is much calmer and very clear…clear enough to see the turtles swimming through the seaweed.

 

So we did spend the entire time on the yacht, but we enjoyed it completely!  Simon and Amanda made us feel very comfortable and we had an afternoon of interesting sights and engaging conversation.  Not to mention a delicious lunch prepared by Amanda!

 

They call the land feature in this next picture the Sleeping Indian.  To the right is his headdress and face profile.  He’s lying on his back with his arms across his chest.  Do you see it?

 

 

The clouds kept us from seeing a lot of the sunset, so the picture above and the one below were the best sunset pictures we were able to get.

The yacht cruise was the perfect way to end our Antigua adventure!  We’re so grateful to Danny, Erin, Cara, and Paul for providing us with this wonderful experience!

The next morning it was travel day back to reality.  It was a wonderful 50th anniversary celebration!  And now it’s New Year’s Eve Eve, so I’ll take this opportunity to wish anyone reading this post a very Happy New Year!  May 2023 be very good to you!