Day #4…Tuesday, February 3, 2015

St. John’s, Antigua

Antigua and its sister island, Barbuda, are located in the center of the Leeward Islands, in the Eastern Caribbean Sea.   Antigua, the largest of the Leeward Islands, is 14 miles long and 11 miles wide with a total area of 108 miles.  The climate averages 75-85° year-round and only averages 45 inches of rainfall annually.  The currency is the Eastern Caribbean Dollar (XCD) but the U.S. dollar is accepted throughout the island.  English is the primary language for the population of 85,000 people.  The island has 365 beaches, miles of fruit groves and beautiful azure waters.

Our Princess ship, the Ruby Princess, docked at the port of St. John’s, Antigua’s capital city.  We ate a light breakfast and headed to the pier to meet our excursion group heading to the Shirley Beach for a day in the sun.  Northwest trade winds kept the temperature comfortable with low humidity.

Dennis was disappointed that the water was too sandy and stirred up to snorkel today.  After spending 3.5 hours at the beach and sampling a taste of jerk fish with rice and beans, we headed back to St. John’s to stroll through the streets of shops.  Several local cafés offered a place for us to use free Wi-Fi but we experienced only limited reception and will try again tomorrow to have better internet signals at our next port of call.

After dinner this evening, we were again disappointed that the theater was full twenty (20) minutes before show time and we missed the 8 P.M. performance of the magician and comedian, Jeff Peterson.  He has a later show tonight but since we are getting up early to enjoy the port of call of St. Lucia at 8 A.M. tomorrow, we retired to our cabin and will not be staying up to be entertained by Jeff Peterson at his late show performance.