Oldies On Tour

Thursday 30th January 2025.

Ffryes beach is our destination today, don’t think we’ve been there this time but first we have to do research on where to watch the 6-Nations matches, and with Cloggys Bar, our usual venue at Falmouth Harbour burnt down, where do we go???   We had heard an un-substantiated rumour they had re-opened in a local hotel which seems strange but we will check it out.

Today looks a little overcast though still hot, a little windy and the clouds are high-up so hopefully no rain. After the usual morning activities Christine got her “deerstalker” hat on and started the research and it looks like Cloggys is in fact somewhere in or around the “Catamaran Marina”, in Rhodes Lane, at the other end of Falmouth Harbour Bay,  well, we will know tomorrow when we rock up to see France play Wales; even after a phone call it is still a little “vague”!!!

Mission accomplished, thank you Christine, then we headed off to Ffryes  Beach and of course, as we arrived we released we had “popped” here after the buggies with Lee and Sarah.   There is a large “green” area between the cars and the beach with a few scattered picnic tables painted in a bright yellow, still we commandeered one and set out our lunch.   We had some cheesy biscuits that somewhere along the line had got damp, so for our entertainment we broke them up and scattered the bits, at which point we had 2-Egrets, a couple of Pigeons and a “flock” oh small, black feathered birds; they soon swept everything up and we then threw the rest of the biscuits, and once devoured they were gone, not to be seen anywhere again!!!!

Like most of the “popular” beaches there was a beach bar serving food and then a bus appeared and discharged a load of tourists, looking at them we concluded they had bought a “lunch package” on their cruise ship, and here they were, fortunately they stayed in the bar and we enjoyed our quiet swim away from them.   The local tourist “pamphlet” suggested this is a good beach to snorkel off so Christine came down with her gear, I on the other hand took the cynical view; a waste of time.   We left our stuff including her snorkel gear on the beach!!!    Perhaps at the rocks on the southern end there could be something to see but with the wind  in the direction it was, it would have been somewhat dangerous if blown onto these rocks.

After a lengthy time in the sea and a beach walk we headed off, not for home but to continue along the road we were on, following the coast; one could say we were travelling along the Antiguan “Riviera”, much of this road is at sea level.

The one thing one sees when driving on any roads here, well apart from “potholes”, is “abandoned cars”, most with various parts such as wheels and engines missing, but more importantly some have been in place for so long, vegetation is growing through many of them.

Our drive passed “Turners beach”, haven’t been there this time, OJ’s, a “beach restaurant” we were recommended to last time but from memory not too impressed, and then onto Carlisle bay.   We wondered is we should splash out and come here on our day of departure, have a nice meal, shower etc., before we head to the airport as we think we have to vacate the cottage by 1000hrs that morning; we will see!!!

The route now turned inland an we drove up through the rain forest, past the “zip wire experience”; did that with Lee and Sarah in 2020 and re-joined theFalmouth Harbour road.

Dinner at home again followed by cribbage where the tables have well and Truly turned, poor Christine is going through the problems I had at the start of the week.

Wednesday 29th January 2025

We are back on track weather-wise, sunny and warm first thing so decided on another picnic and head to Hawksbill beach, not too far, 7-miles but again 30 minutes!!!

So normal morning routine, breakfast, a few chores, make the picnic and away.   Down into St. John’s and out along the bay; only one cruise ship in but what a “big’n”, probably a 6,000 passenger one.   We tried to visualise what it would do to St. John’s if they all decided to get off at once, that number represents about 6% of the Antiguan population!!!! Also in the bay again was the three masted cruise sailing ship, “Sea Cloud Spirit”, a German registered vessel offering “very” expensive cruises; well above our pay-grades!!!

I couldn’t remember Hawksbill beach but as soon as we dropped down the hill onto it, memories came flooding back.   We did moor off this beach whilst on the catamaran but due to the “nasty” weather, didn’t stay long.   The reason for this name is the rock just outside the bay, it looks like a Hawksbill Turtle, a species that are critically endangered.   I think it looks more like a rat whilst Christine thinks more “ mouse”: still the sandy beach is good.   Like all good beaches here in Antigua, at the other end is the affordable all-inclusive “Hawksbill Resort” mainly chalets facing the sea, very nice.

The car park is on the edge of the beach so we left everything in the boot and headed straight into the sea where Christine tried to do some snorkelling, she saw several fishes but nothing exciting but best so far!!  There are no vendors or beach loungers for hire here, bring your own; unfortunately we don’t have any and the cottage we are staying at has very limited resources, and that’s putting it mildly!!!

Lunch time so back to the car and got the cool box (the one thing the cottage has!!) and sat at a picnic table overlooking the sea.   It was really nice, the sky was clear, the sun was hot and we had the beach “nearly” to ourselves, this is Antigua at its best.

After lunch, oh dear back in the sea. 😂😂.  We were in for ages before heading on our customary walk along the beach, passing all the chalets, perhaps we should investigate one of these next time; a change from Friers Hill Cottage?

Eventually we “tore” ourselves away from the beach and headed back, but en-route and for “old time’s sake”, took a little detour to see Galley Bay Resort, the infamous place we caused a slight disruption years ago.😂😂

Back in 2006 I was heading to meet Christine on “Whitbread” (Andrew’s boat at that time) that was moored in Galley Bay but unfortunately the beach can only be accessed from the sea or, through the hotel; I didn’t know this at the time.   My “instructions” were clear, to meet up with “Jersey” Jane at the airport, who I hadn’t met before, then get the taxi to swing-by a supermarket and get provisions for 7/8 people for a few days sailing.    Mission accomplished and we arrived at the hotel, not knowing the only way to the beach was through the foyer passing reception, down a long corridor, passing numerous public rooms and eventually to the beach.   After a discussion with the taxi driver who wanted more money that had been agreed at the airport, I loaded up one of the “American Style” trolleys, but instead of suits hinging up, there were a great number of supermarket bags full of food and off I went, poor Jane not knowing what was happening as we were accosted by several members of staff trying to stop us.   At this time Christine and the “gang” were heading up from the beach causing a pincer movement which sent the hotel staff into a “spin, even the manager was in the “fray”, but my head was down and I still kept going in-spite of everything.  The two teams met up in the long corridor from the beach just as Christine was accosted by the manager but the “bullshit” Christine gave him didn’t “cut-the-ice” but it gave me those extra seconds to breakout onto the beach and now there was nothing they could do!!!    After a few pleasantries everybody retreated to the beach leaving the hotel staff and manager dazed!!!   Later that day, Jane apparently asked Christine what was she doing with me???

After a good chuckle reminiscing, we carried on along this narrow road that suddenly became a big, very steep hill; it felt as if we were on the climb of a rather big dipper with Christine telling me to “stop” but as I pointed out there was nowhere to turn!!!  We carried on and eventually broke out into a car park at the top of a big hill known as “table hill five islands” and what a view of the surrounding beaches and bays including St. John’s and Deep bay, well worth the anxiety, though Christine didn’t agree with me. The way down was the same route but this time as we went over the crest of the hill, it was like the first drop on a very bog dipper; poor Christine, I did put her through it!!!

Back at home for the usual showers and dinner, again followed by cribbage and I am pleased to report my extremely unfortunate run of poor cards has changed and we enjoyed five very close games.   We never knew one could get so tired doing nothing so another early night

Tuesday 28th January 2025

We awoke to a nice sunny morning so decided to make the most of the day and take a picnic to the beach, we may even invest in a couple of beach loungers with a big “brolly”, but first breakfast.

After some discussion we decided to head to “Jolly Beach”, not a beach either of us can remember going to before, but who knows!!!   This beach is just to the southern entrance to Jolly Harbour so en route stopped by our favourite tourist lady to report back on our day’s sailing.

As we entered her office and before we could say “hello”; quick as a flash she asked, “how was it???”  At this point we sat down and gave her our feed-back; I think she is going to have another word with Captain Simon!!!   After some jolly “banter”, we left and headed to the h

Due to all the buildings being demolished in preparation for the new, 21st century Jolly Harbour project, the car park is now a few 100-meters from the beach, however they have built a temporary broadleaf walk to get there, which was good.

This broad walk opens up onto a rather large white sandy, fairly busy beach, though not in the same league as Long Bay beach last Saturday.   There is the “Jolly Beach Resort” behind most of this beach with its permanent, pretty sun-shades and sun beds a fair way back from the waters edge which allows and probably annoys the resort’s guests, as anyone can move their portable sun beds in front, here in Antigua the beaches are open to everyone!!!   Talking of sun beds, today we invested in a couple with a sunshade close to the water.   Whilst Christine was settling in, I headed back to the car to get our ice box with our picnic and “beers” in, we are not rushing back today.

Today the weather is fairly settled, mild wind, a sprinkling of cloud, no rain, in fact the perfect afternoon to be on the beach; a good $15 well spent, though they did ask for $20 at first!!!

We enjoyed our lunch, spent a long time in the sea and walked the length of the beach before heading back to the car around 1700hrs; the picnic box was much lighter now as well!!!

The drive back was busy as it was their rush hour, so our 30-minute journey took over an hour, the charm of this island.

To finish off this excellent day we should have gone out to dinner but this morning Christine got a pork fillet out of the freezer so going “out”, went “out” of the window!!!

After another Culinary masterpiece out of this antiquated kitchen, which we enjoyed on our verandah in the cooler evening air, we cleared up.  Now we got the cribbage out as tonight I have something to prove, after the two previous disastrous evenings I need to “up” my game, I did lose but by fine margins, so I was reasonably happy as we had five tight games; my turn tomorrow🤞🤞🤞

Sunday 26th January 2025

It seemed strange and rather quiet waking up to a cottage without visitors. We’ve been here just under three weeks an we’ve enjoyed the company of visitors for two weeks, now we’re on our own, what to do???

The weather has again changed, yesterday was generally glorious but today it is disappointing with rain showers etc., so this morning Christine sorted out the spare room ready for ????????  I caught up with writing the logs and then it was lunch time.   

The rain still kept coming so we decided to stay put and do nothing other than discuss future plans (watch this space) whilst watching the rain and dismal cloud formations until it was dinner time.   Today being Sunday Christine produced a magnificent roast dinner with superb “roasties” but with limited alcohol; livers, weight and all that!!!   

We concluded with an evening of cribbage where Christine reigned supreme.

Monday 27th January 2025

Another lazy morning as the weather is in two minds; “to rain or not to rain” so pottered about until it made up its mind.

By midday things were looking up, it hadn’t rained for a bit and the “blue” was peeping through, so decided to head to Deep Bay Beach after lunch.   Deep bay is where Christine and Martin headed out on the dingy in the heavy rain to dive off the wreck last week; hopefully we won’t have that sort of rain today!!

Deep bay is the other side of St. John’s; 6-miles away but it will take bout 30-minutes, mainly due traffic in the town.

We finished lunch, gathered our things and headed off and by this time it was 90% blue sky, result.   Our route ran along the harbour and today only one cruise ship, “Tui” and what looked like a monster 3-masted sailing boat; most probably a cruising boat as well but not the usual 4 or 5 ships on the jetty.   Last week we were is discussing the logistics of imports, food in particular as there is no real deep water harbour here, even oil tankers stop out at sea and moor onto a fixed pumping station off Runaway bay, and pipe the stuff in.   But today we saw a different story to John’s harbour, across the entrance bay there is a container jetty, just like all the rest around the world but very much smaller!!

10 minutes later we arrived in Deep Bay car park, a 5-minute walk across a bridge and follow the path through the undergrowth, then wow.  A crescent shaped beach, golden sand, clear blue sea and virtually no one this end of the beach, just as I remember.    At the other end is “The Royalton” beach resort, fortunately they don’t “stray” to our end!!!  What is our end is a Seafood “shack” Restaurant called “Just Grilling”  so we went to take a look and bought a couple of beers.    Lobster is their main dish but do offer chicken for those that don’t want a lobster.   I asked about freshness and he pointed into the sea where he has a big lobster trap; straight out and onto the “bar-be”; got to go there next week. 

Over looking this beach and more importantly, St. John’s harbour entrance is what’s left of “Fort Barrington”, built in 1779 on top of “Goat Hill”, “and you need to be a goat to climb up to it”, we only got 2/3rds up last time we were here and didn’t feel the need to finish the job off this time!!!!!

Back on the beach we got talking to a couple of Canadians who picked our brains on various things before enjoying the cool waters of deep bay; no rain, no wind, just wall-to-wall sunshine, at last.  Eventually our time was up so after our customarily walk along the beach to dry off we headed back to the car, though we did bump into the Canadians again and recommended they go to Shirley Heights on Sunday.

Dinner again on our verandah but no wind though the mozzies were biting. We followed this with another disastrous game of crib (for me!!) before heading to bed after a beautiful beach afternoon.   We hope tomorrow is as good as we head to Jolly Beach.

Saturday 25th January 2025

Martin heads home later today so need to visit a different beach but still be back in time for his flight and after some debate settled on the nice beach at long bay on the east coast.   From memory, though it is on the Atlantic coast it is very well sheltered, but first breakfast. 

To set us up for the day and especially Martin, he has a long wait for his “in-flight” meal, Christine produced another fabulous full English; I don’t know how she does it bearing in mind the primitive kitchen and utensils at her disposal.

After clearing up and in Martin’s case, packing, we headed the 13-miles, 35-minute journey across the island and parked.  The first thing that caused a little concern was how we were accosted by locals trying to get us to use their beach chairs etc., followed by others telling us which bar to go to.   Our memories of this beach are of a nice quiet sandy beach with a gentle walk into the blue sea and a “not-so-good” Italian restaurant, but OMG, the world and his wife was there, it was so busy we thought we were in Benidorm!!   We walked along the path behind the beach to see if there was any reasonable space but no, even the Italian restaurant seems to have disappeared, it was end-to-end beach bars with the odd gift shop in-between.   We suspect Taxi drivers have discovered this beach and it is now a destination for the cruise ship passengers, what a shame.  Without saying anything we looked at each other and did a “U” turn, jumped into the car and re-traced our drive back.   After a short discussion we headed back to our local, Runaway beach.

After about an hour of wasted time, we eventually parked in our favourite secluded space under the trees, just behind our adopted “wonky” table that someone had moved back off the sand; cheeky!!!   We even enjoyed drinking beers whilst in the sea and it was a lovely, sunny day; typical, Martin leaves us later today!!!!

We certainly prefer this beach as no tourists, only locals and those in the know use it; this is probably due to the difficult shelf about 5-meters into the sea that causes issues when trying to get out, certainly not on the cruise ships “go-to” beach😂😂

Eventually Martin had to say his good-byes as we headed home so he could get himself ready for his 9-hour overnight flight.   We also had time for a snack before leaving to the airport.

There is a short route over the big hill behind us but terrible the fiddly streets with some of the largest potholes on the island, or the longer route through St John’s with all its traffic; our usual route.  We haven’t used the short cut since the first week we were here in 2020 so as we have time I decided we would try it; surely they have improved it by now, No, it’s still as bad as before but it gave Martin some last minute sights!!!

Dropped him off at VC Bird International Airport, (the only airport) and headed straight back and had a very quiet evening, no alcohol!!!!

Just prior to take off we heard from Martin saying good bye etc., and to inform us he had been “up-graded” to Upper Class; Luck of the devil that man has!!!!!

Friday 24th January 2025

At last we woke to a blue sky and sunshine, hopefully all this bad weather is behind us now and Martin can get in some more “tanning”, he has been unlucky with his week.

We had a delay in getting out after breakfast today as Martin had an important business conference call but as it was his last day, he had elected to return to Half Moon Beach and the “Shack”, he likes this beach,

By late morning we hit the road, 47-minutes to cover the 13-miles, what a joke, mind you if you see these roads you will understand why!!!!!

We arrived a little after 12-noon an as it was approaching lunchtime, headed straight into the Shack; history tells us service is rather slow!!!   Today the usual “lady” who seemed to run the place, takes the orders, delivers the food and finally took the money wasn’t around; perhaps her day off!!! Today we were honoured, her job was being carried out by the owner so we thought he would speed things up, on the contrary things were much worse.   Yes we got our first round of beers in and ordered our food, then our second round of beers and around 1300-hrs, the owner came over to check our order; we think he gave our order to someone else!!!  One would think our second attempt to order would be given priority, no it was at the back of the queue; 1330hrs when our food eventually came.   Though we were somewhat “hissed off” one couldn’t fault our food, an excellent fish wrap and very nice spicy fries.   We couldn’t indulge in too much to eat as we are booked to go out tonight.   

Today, with the winds being south westerly’s and where there is a lot of Atlantic turbulence, swimming off the beach was going to be “interesting”, and Christine and I tried, but failed to get through the waves where we were, so had to move to a more sheltered spot along the beach.    There were more folk on the beach than usual but no-one in the sea!!!

We found a nice spot under a couple of mangrove type trees and here we went straight in, no problem, in fact our presence encouraged a few more to venture in.   As usual the sea was refreshing under the hot, but windy sky.  After a walk along the beach to dry off we headed back to base.

We explained to Martin one doesn’t go to Papa Zouk for the elegance and ambiance of a fine restaurant, however on the other hand, the food and atmosphere is, “top draw”.  We were just trying to manage his expectations as we had “banged” on about this place.

After the usual showers and pre-dinner drinks we headed off, I think Martin was a little sceptical as we drove down this unlit narrow street and turned up into a back ally where the road was blocked by too many taxis dropping and collecting people; “good sign” says Martin.  After a few minutes and a taxi trying to do a 3-point turn with hardly enough space, why he didn’t just drive to the end of the road and stop all this confusion I don’t know!!!   We found an “unsuitable” space with two wheels in the deep drain; not to sure Martin was happy with this, but hey, drive like the locals BB&G (big balls and go)  and park like the locals!!!

Upon entry this young waitress came up to us and asked “Geoff?” How did she know, did I disgrace my self last time we were here, I think not.   Anyway after a few minutes she asked this table of four if we could join them, it was a long table with a long bench each side and a chair on the end, perfect, and perfect it was.  The four we joined were very friendly and we all had a laugh as we joined them.  I then recommended to Martin we each have one of the house special “Rum Punches”, Christine went straight into the wine!!    At this point Martin said this place was fabulous and his kind of place, good news!!   The four we were sitting with were very interesting, the lady next to me with an “outrageous” red hat, was a well known designer in the Caribbean and USA and was really outgoing, we had a laugh, and opposite her was her brother, a retired publisher who spent 3-months in Antigua, Rome, US and somewhere else I’ve forgotten.  They had their respective partners with them, a jolly party that included us and it helped they were regulars at Papa Zouk’s.  Whilst chatting they recommended a couple of other similar, local places to eat, that’s good.   

At the end of another superb meal of various dishes two that included half a lobster, it was time to go, but first we had to book a table for our last night!!!   I wonder if by then they will have forgotten my name!!!

As we were leaving Martin informed us that this was one of the best restaurants he had ever been to, he even went on to say “the best”, alternatively it may have been the rum punch and wine, not to forget the G&T earlier.

The car got us home nicely!!!!  And then the accusations came from Martin; he had the audacity to suggest I stitched him up by getting the barman to add additional rum; I didn’t, probably because I didn’t think of it😂😂, suffice to say no nightcaps tonight!!!!   We soon headed off to bed after a really nice day, again.