Blog #2 - An Antiguan Sunset

Sunday, 20 Feb 2011.  We spent our first full day in Antigua exploring our resort, which started with two orientation sessions; one with our Air Canada Vacation local rep and one with the resort Guest Services staff.  For meals we had breakfast and lunch at the Sea Breeze Restaurant (buffet style), a hamburger at the Beach Side Grill and dinner at the Buccaneers Restaurant (à la carte).

Lorne, Sandy and Kristin off on an adventure on Antigua.

All meals are provided and we can eat whatever we want off the buffet or menu.  Generally, the food is very good with lots of variety.  There is a fourth restaurant called Nicole’s where we have to pay a $25 surcharge per person and men have to wear long pants and a collared shirt.  We will try Nicole’s later in the week.

An interesting tree we saw in Antigua.

They have prices on the menus in US dollars, which confused me at first because I thought we were at an all-inclusive resort.  I ordered the hamburger at the grill without first looking at the menu and then glanced at the menu after they asked me for my room number.  Then I saw that the price of the hamburger was $16!  I thought I was going to be charged this amount but then another guest explained to me that some guests are not on the all-inclusive plan.  I guess I will find out for sure when I check out on Saturday and see if there are extra charges on my bill.

We did go on one organized excursion on this day to Shirley Heights, which overlooks English Harbour, to see two local bands (a Caribbean steel drum band and a reggae band).  They had a big party going with lots of drinks and food off the grill, but you had to pay for this food and drink, so we did not partake other than a few drinks to quench our thirst, since we could eat and drink for free back at our resort.

A Caribbean Steel Band

The bands were very good.  I took a video of the steel band, but the file size is 100 MB and too large to upload from the slow connection here in Antigua, so I will try to upload it when I get home.



Kristin among the throng at Shirley Heights



The other big attraction of going to Shirley Heights was to see the sunset, which we can’t see from our resort on the eastern side of the island.  We can see the sunrise, but who wants to get up that early on vacation.  The sunset was quite nice as you can see from the pictures below.  These sunset pictures are provided in sequence as the sun was setting, which seems surprising because the lighting conditions seem to vary considerably and even get lighter as the sun was setting.

The start of the sunset.

A sailboat heading into English Harbour in Antigua at sunset.  I think he timed his return to harbour so that he could appear in many tourists' sunset photo shots.

The sun finally sets over the Caribbean Sea.  You can see the island of Montserrat to the left.  Montserrat has an active volcano that had a major eruuption in 1995 that caused two-thirds of the population to evacuate.  Local Antiguans told us that they still get ash floating over from minor eruptions that continue to occur.