Today was our first port stop on the island of Antigua. We awoke to plenty of sunshine today, and the forecast was for clear skies and about 84 degrees.
Our plan for today is to take one of the local city buses to an area called Nelson’s Dockyard, which was used by the British as a port and repair facility for their ships in the 1700’s. The buildings have been somewhat restored, and are currently being used as shops, restaurants and small hotels. There is also a museum, and a short hike to what is left of the fort that protected the entrance to the harbor.
We ate breakfast in the buffet, and were ready to get off of the ship shortly after we docked at 8:00 AM. We gathered up our backpacks and headed for the short walk to the local bus station. The town area of the port city was not very attractive, the buildings were old and some of the older wooden houses and structures were actually falling apart.
The bus station was straightforward, and we found Bus #17 at the terminal. It was a smaller vehicle, which could only hold about 20 passengers. We paid our fare of $4.00 US and boarded. Once the bus was full we headed out. It was about a 30 minute ride to the Dockyard.
We paid our entrance fee of $8.00 US per person, and entered the restored dockyard area. This is not the main season for tourism here, so several of the shops were not open, which we had been made aware of when we did research. It was still interesting, there were information signs outside of each building which told what purpose it had been used for during the period it was in operation.
There was supposed to be a water taxi that would transport you to the other side of the harbor where you could try and take a taxi to an area called Shirley Heights, which is a viewing area high above the harbor. However, the water taxi was not in operation, I guess since this is not the real tourist season yet.
We did find the trail heading out to the fort at the harbor entrance, and walked the out trail to get some great views of the coastline.
There was actually another trail to hike that lead along the coast over to another beach area, but it was pretty steep, and there were lots of some type of really thorny bushes everywhere.
Many of the older branches had fallen off and there were dried thorny limbs spread over places on the trail that would even stick onto the soles of our Keen Sandals. We opted not to take that trail and risk slipping and getting spiked. There were lots of small stones and pebbles that made the trail very slippery, like walking on marbles.
We headed back into the dockyard facility and looked around some more at the buildings, and then headed to the entrance to wait for the next city bus to take us back to the bus terminal near the port. After about 20 minutes, a van arrived, which was marked with the #17 logo, so we got on with about 6 other persons. The bus we had taken over was much larger and was air conditioned. This was a van that only held about 8-10 persons and was not air conditioned. Needless to say, the ride back was not as nice as the ride over.
Since we had not seen much to look at around the port, we headed back onto the ship for a late lunch in the buffet. We thought about getting back off and looking at some of the stores along the waterfront, near the pier, but decided we did not really need to do any shopping.
We just headed back up to the pool area and sat in the chairs near the pool, enjoying the afternoon.
The ship left Antigua at 5:00 PM. We had not been that impressed with this port. I am sure there were some nice beaches to visit, but overall, this was not the best port we have visited in the Caribbean.
There was a Bavarian Fest in the buffet, so we went to that instead of going to the Dining Room. The food was good, but there were no German Beers for sale like we have had on previous cruises. They were only serving the normal beer selections, which was a little disappointing.
We had some Riesling wine with dinner and then headed to watch some of the music entertainment in the Atrium while we sat at the Vines Wine Bar. We have an early wake up time tomorrow, so we headed back to the room around 10:30 PM.
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