St. John's...a thriving town...

  St. John, Antigua and Barbuda
Friday, March 13, 2009

WELCOME !

Today our 5th port of call is Antigua (pronounce An-tee-ga)

We woke up late almost about 9am everybody slept late last night. Marique is enjoying alot and having fun with her activities in "circle C". While all of us spend time watching the broadway show at the Caribbean Lounge.
The weather today is overcast and temp is 76F, so no plan to go to the beach. The only itenerary in my list is to explore St. Johns and go to Nelson Dockyard/ English Harbour. After breakfast, the kids decided to hang out in Camp Carnival for their own activities since they dont want to come with us, looks like they're not interested to see Antigua.

At the busy port of St. Johns

We started exploring St. John's..the capital of Antigua...a thriving town and harbour. The streets are lined with typically Caribbean wooden houses. I heard that most of the historic buildings are destroyed by a seaquake in 19th century. 

St John the Baptist Cathedral

The finest view that we can see from the ship from the busy capital is the St. John the Baptist Cathedral.

front view..

Its distinctive twin towers can clearly be seen all over the old town. Thats why we went straight ahead to check out the cathedral. Its two blocks eastward on Church Street. This structure was built from 1845-48. I found out

An Anglican Episcopal church

that despite of its exposed location it turned out to be sturdy enough to withstand the hurricane Hugo in 1989.

the side view

 

thr front altar

Then after exploring St John's, we contracted a taxi to Nelson Dockyard/ English Harbor for $40 round trip. Its 12 miles away from St. John. We noticed while we are driving by, the town after St Johns are not appealing, i dont like it actually.  We pass the Falmouth harbour which is nice. Then we arrived at The Nelson Dockyard. We told to taxi driver to wait for us for one hour and he agreed. Nelson Dockyard is named in honour of Admiral Horatio Nelson, a captain in Leeward Island in 1784. As im reading the dockyard history, it was built in 1725 and abandoned by the navy in 1889. Its function was to maintain the Royal Naval Warship. After exploring and sightseeing the dockyard, their museum, and the English Harbour, we left and move on. Our dear driver is their waiting for us. Its 2:15 pm.

at the Sail Loft

Pillars of the Sail loft

Back to the ship, we had lunch. After lunch, the laundry is filing up so i have to do some washing (not me but the washing machine duh!). Then i decided to go to fitness center for some "fat-burning" exercise. I was amazed and surprised with their fitness center, it was totally high-end and  ultra modern!
Its dinner time once again...as usual my big-eater family enjoyed the sumptous foods.
Then we just watch  "movie under the stars" at the pool deck! Great!
Time to sleep.