Thursday 4th February

Antigua

Antigua, the island where it rarely rains, and when those short sharp showers stop after ten minutes the sun comes back for the rest of the day.

Wrong!

It was raining heavily before we left the ship for the 'Highlights of Antigua' tour, eased for a while, then bucketed down again just as we arrived at English Harbour for a look at Nelson's Dockyard. Shame really, as you could tell that in bright sunshine it's an incredibly photogenic place. Then we had another deluge in the afternoon, with grey skies the whole day.

The island seems very down at heel, coping as it does with occasional devastating hurricanes and seemingly corrupt/incompetent politicians. Suspiciously, the Chinese are now moving in, supporting major projects such as the brand new island hospital and other 'good work' for no apparent reason than altruism - yeah, right!

I imagine that we'll see the same pattern everywhere we visit on this cruise - pleasant, friendly, peaceful islands with economies dominated by tourism but nevertheless failing to make the most of their opportunity to fully exploit their visitors by improving attractions and, especially, roads.

Like yesterday, we returned to the Constellation for lunch. Until yesterday, Gill had intended us to head for a beach for the afternoon, but two things changed that; firstly, we overdid the sun a bit yesterday and decided to opt for a cooler afternoon, and, secondly, an unexpected alternative arose.

Our friends, Peter and Glynis, have been holidaying here in Antigua and return home tomorrow - previously we'd assumed that they were leaving today. After an exchange of texts yesterday we arranged to take a taxi to their hotel this afternoon and spend a couple of hours with them. Leaving the ship we were assigned probably the strangest taxi driver we'll ever have. She was an elderly lady in a flowery frock and a hat that had seen better days - she looked more as if she was off to church.

Gill initially insisted that she was 85-90 but has subsequently compromised on 70+ It took her about half an hour to crawl the 3-4 miles to where Peter and Glynis were staying, even stopping along the way to ask for directions - at one point she was even asking us which way we thought she should go. But the good news was that she was prepared to wait for us for two hours and take us back afterwards - after all, we couldn't afford to be late and miss the ship!