At the north eastern curve of the West Indies lies Antigua...a wonderful little island that Tom and I got to work and holiday in this past January. Christopher Columbus named Antigua after the Santa Maria de la Antigua Church in Seville, Spain. In 1674 Sir Codrington, a former governor of Barbados, established the first large sugar plantation on Antigua. His accomplishments encouraged other landowners to become involved in the sugar industry, and by the early 1700's the landscape was dotted with some 170 sugar mills. The ruins of many of these are still seen.
Antigua's strategic position in the middle of the Antilles chain, as well as its natural harbours, made it the chief British naval base in the West Indies during the Napoleonic Wars and a prime U.S. base during World War II.
Nelson's Dockyard National Park built in 1743-94 is reputed to be the only existing Georgian Dockyard. It was used by a number of British Admirals, including Horatio Nelson. Several buildings have been restored as as you can see by the pictures, it is quite a beautiful memorial to what was...Tom is sitting by the fortification wall and the pillars once had a wooden boat house on top of them...this is all that remains.
St. John's is the Capital and it is a busy little place...many tourists and the large cruise ships coming in. On our tour we drove through Fig Tree Drive which is really a rain forest...so lush! I have a couple of pictures - one of banana and sugar cane and the other at a street vendors picking up fruit.
We stayed at the Jolly Harbour Resort and had a wonderful view of all the boats coming and going into the harbour. You could also see when it was going to rain as the clouds came from this direction as well. We had a little golf cart to toodle around in so got to see quite a bit of the resort, the golf course and market place.
I took some pictures of the local flowers...hope you enjoy them...and the last picture is of the catamaran trip that was Tom's Birthday present...now that was an experience!!