Somewhere to eat and drink

As we are nearly Antiguan citizens we have been here so long! I thought I would give anyone who might be considering a holiday out here our thoughts on places we have frequented since we have been here.

Around Jolly Harbour

The Crows Nest

The staff  are very friendly and helpful. There is wi fi but it can be slow as there are always a lot of people using it. They have a happy hour between four and six when you can buy a bucket (5 beers) of Carib beer for 25ec though the bottle openers they provide can sometimes be a challenge! The food is good with large portions and we often share one dish which is ample for us. They do excellent spicy chicken wings as a bar snack.

Mellini’s

We found the pizzas very disappointing considering it is an Italian restaurant but the specilas are better value and much tastier. They also have wi fi.

May Day

A new Hungarian restaurant which we have not tried but know several people who have and they have not been very complimentary.

Acroplis Greek Restaurant

The service was slow but the waiter was very friendly. The owners are actually Greek and the food was quite good but a bit on the pricey side. This might be because we have eaten so often in Greece!
Al Porto
This is over by the customs dock and looks out over the marina. It does a great 2 for 1 pizza deal on Tuesday. But you really have to book. Nice place.
Miracles
If you go out the Jolly Harbour complex and turn left you come to a red route master bus hiding behind that is a great little restaurant that serves good local food. Half a lobster served in one of five ways(you choose) costs 60ec. Very good value. Service can be a little slow but then no problems ... Don't worry be happy!!

English Harbour

The Copper and Lumber Hotel

A good setting but it is a shame that the ambiance is spoiled by slow service. They have Wadadli beer on draft but you need a drink while you wait for your drink! It can get very busy and that affects the speed of the service even more. We have waited an hour once for food. The food when it comes is good. Your bill comes in UD dollars.

Falmouth Harbour

Collins Place.

This is a local café that opens for lunch. It is a local menu and the Roti’s are delicious. I have also had the fish stew which is very good as is the pork. As you would expect the prices are good a linch for two with a beer each will set you back around 45 – 50 ec (about £10). It is a family run establishment Rashid serves while his mum does the cooking. It is located just outside Falmouth Harbour Marina.

Cap Horn

Ii enjoyed my meal here. Their speciality is hot stone cooking so the ingriedients are served to you along with a hot lava stone to gook them on and various side dishes to compliment. The meat was tender and the fish yummy. The service was good the waitress friendly and very helpful.

Catherines Café Plage

If you want to push the boat out for a special occasion then this is a lovely place to eat. They open every lunch time and on Wednesday and Friday evenings. It is a wonderful setting on Pigeon Beach and the service cannot be faulted. You are greeted with a smile everyone is happy and nothing is too much trouble. The food was delicious. It is not cheap but it is a great restaurant.

SeaBreeze

We have had a drink here once and will not be frequenting it again. The service was surly and to cap it all the waitress decided that she was keeping the change as a tip without bothering to offer it back to us. They do have wifi.

Skullduggery

A bar next to SeaBreeze. They serve Pannini and snacks whilst you go to the bar to get your drink the girls have a smile on their face! They have wifi.

The Mad Mongoose

A good bar. The service is good and they have Happy Hour between 4 and 7. They often have a special deal on beer but Junior the bar man during happy hour serves a good Dark and Stormy (rum and ginger beer) for 5ec(just over a pound!)They have bands playing some nights.

The Famous Mauro

I have mentioned this before. A very good pizza place. The pizza are excellent and Mauro prepares them and cooks them around the pizza oven which is on view for everyone to see.The chilli oil is dynamite but the waitresses will give you warning about this. The devil pizza is hot and spicy and the Romano has plenty of anchovies and capers. It is an authentic pizza establishment. Pizzas are good value, the wine is good and from Italy.

Pirates Pizza

This is run by an Italian and the quality of the pizzas is variable. If it is busy you might have to wait quite sometime for your pizza but they will warn you about the waiting time. The pizza base is how I like it nice and thin and one big pizza is more than enough for two people. It does not open until 6 in the evening.

Stir Crazy!!

So we are still floating around at anchor in Falmouth Harbour and starting to go a little stir crazy so we hired a car for a week to have a drive around the Island. There are around 85,000 people live in Antigua and it is not very big so driving was not that bad and they drive on the right side of the road for us ….. though to be honest the majority seem to drive in the middle!

John is having problems with tooth ache so we booked an appointment with a dentist in St. John’s the capital. The big cruise liners come in here and it is set up for this and Redcliffe Quay is full of tiny boutique type shops and cafes all dealing in US dollars and claiming to be duty free. I found it ok for a day out but I am glad we did not anchor there.

                                                        The view from the Boxer Shack

 On our travels going up to St. Johns we travelled along the coast and found a little bar/restaurant close to Morris Beach called the Boxer Shack which had a lovely view and we sat and watched the pelicans dive bombing into the sea for fish. They really take no prisoners diving into the sea like kamikaze pilots. I tried to get a picture of them but you can’t appreciate just how fast they go from the picture the splash is the pelican entering the water. We noticed the restaurant did Sunday lunch so we went back for the full Sunday lunch last Sunday just for a change. We have got quite into Caribbean food and a particular favourite is Roti. They are sort of like pancakes filled with chicken, vegetables or pork. They really are great for lunch and there is a little café in Falmouth called Colin’s Place where we have taken up residence!! I have had fish stew there also which was very good too. For some reason there are quite a lot of Italian restaurants too and we tried the Famous Mauro Pizza restaurant a really excellent pizza and dynamite chilli oil!  He has a proper pizza oven and cooks the pizza in front of you. I would recommend the place to any one going to Falmouth.

Just past St. Johns is Dickenson Bay and St. James Fort. We stopped off in the car and were surprised to see groups of tourists segwaying their way up the beach and odd sight! St James Fort is now sadly in need of renovation but the guns are still in very good condition with the inscriptions very clear. The beach at Dickenson Bay was very clean and crystal clear as well as warm the water temperature here is around 80 degrees Fahrenheit!

                                                 Another way of seeing the Island!!

I should also mention the mongoose which is found all around the island. They were introduced into Antigua to control the snake population. There are no snakes in Antigua now but there are a lot of mongooses which scurry around the place. I have to admit at first I thought they were rats till I took a closer look!  

The Wobbly Bob Rce took plce on Valentines Day teams had to make their own boat in two and a half hours we took our outboard over and ended up giving some guys a tow.... cheating was allowed and it looked good fun!!

Falmouth harbour mast step blues!

We are still in Falmouth Harbour but our mast is now off and we are waiting for the new mast step to be fabricated. When the mast came off it revealed that the mast step had been badly corroded but it did not look like the mast had been too badly affected. The boat looks sad without its main mast but John decided that he would take off the mast step in an effort to keep costs down. It was attached to the deck with seven screws, two came off with the impact screwdriver after a bit of a fight but the others were complete swines!!

                              The expensive jigsaw puzzle that was our mast step!

 When he thought that one of them had started to spin in the plate that is embedded in the saloon ceiling we had to take a section of the headlining off. This was a real low moment for the two of us. That headlining had been put on in Gibraltar in 2008/9 as part of our refurbishment it was with very heavy hearts that we ripped it off! However the plate is now off and has been delivered to Steve Miller at Marine Power Services who assured us he had seen worse and went through with us exactly how he was going to fabricate the new step. I think it made both of us feel better that things were finally moving forward. He told us that the material would not be in the country til Tuesday but I for one would rather he was upfront about time frames rather than give us unrealistic ones that he was unable to keep. He seems like a good guy to do business with.

The mast came off with apparent ease John had lubricated all the fittings we had taken off the boom and all the sails and disconnected the electrics so the lads at Antigua Rigging just had to disconnect the triadic stay and connect the mast to the crane. They went up both the Main and the Mizzen with no safety line.. ‘we don’t use safety lines’ but they did use their halyards for the job.

We also has a bit of a near disaster when we were sorting out the problem with the anti siphon valve. John discovered that we did not actually have one which could have been part of the reason the problems we had on the way over. So he has extended the loop and put in an anti siphon valve but to do this we needed to buy some more hose of the right size so he snipped a bit of the existing hose off to take to Budget Marine and left the hose wedged but not connected in the locker. We bought the hose but it was late and getting dark when we got back to the boat so it was a job for the morning. When John got up he was surprised to see that the bilge float was right up to the wheel in the cockpit. On further investigation he found that the engine room was floating and all of the underfloor lockers were as well!! The hose which he had not connected had dropped down and had been siphoning sea water into the bilge all night!! So we had to clear out and clear out all the lockers wash everything down with fresh water and then put the contents back again. However the good news was we discovered it early and John connected up the extra hose fitted the anti siphon valve and hopefully the problem has been solved.

Any way in the words of the song  …. ‘Things can only get better!’ so fingers crossed that in 2/3 weeks we will be out of here and on our way South. We had planned to go North and cruise around Cuba but I think that will have to wait so we have decided to go South and hopefully at some stage we will meet up with our friend Ben on Vieux Marlin who crossed just before us.

Our friend ben is from Sicily and is called Mauro ..... has he found himself a new vocation!!! This is an excellent Pizza place by the way!