Antigua Jan/Feb 2008

[Titanic]

Summary
We enjoyed an extremely enjoyable two-week holiday on a beautiful island. A great destination for a mixed holiday (my partner does not dive), but probably not a location you would choose (given other options in this part of the world) for a dedicated diving holiday.
We were there for 2-weeks late Jan / early Feb. This is the island’s driest time but it did rain. A couple of days the rain was quite frequent and it stayed cloudy in between, but mostly it was just slightly annoying with cloudy periods or the odd heavy shower. We did come back nice and brown though! Apparently their winters are not as reliable as they were a few years ago.

Flight
We flew direct from Manchester with BMI (discounted price of under £350 return). The flight was nine hours outbound and about seven and a half on the way back. This was the longest flight we’d ever done and it went very well, food and service were good, personal entertainment system worked well and it passed a lot more quickly than some flights we’ve taken to Egypt!

Accommodation
We booked a self-catering villa in Jolly Harbour (with air-conditioning included, we were very glad we had this as it was warm at night and it also meant little or no insect problems) direct over the internet through Holiday villas, holiday homes, holiday rentals, Private Vacation Homes by owner. It was fine apart from the fact it was not cleaned for our arrival so we spent a couple of hours on the phone on our first night getting this sorted. Most of the villas here are located with the rear of the property backing on to the harbour itself with an individual mooring, i.e. you are sitting by the water, very nice (although not a swimming option!).
If you choose this area I would suggest you want to be on the South Finger which gives easy access to the beach, dive centre, supermarket and some restaurants (some people do hire golf trolleys but if you can walk you don’t need them). Other villas are on the North Finger and this is a significant distance from such as the beach and dive centre, I could understand people there wanting a golf trolley (which cost about $20US a day BTW).

I was recommended on this board to try for a villa through this web site Holiday Home Rentals - Villas, Condos and Apartments to rent, but none were available at the time we wanted.

Jolly Harbour is dominated by Americans but there were a significant number of Brits around as well as local people who live there. It is fairly quiet although we found the amount of traffic on the site (we’re not big fans of cars and there are no pavements) a bit irritating, especially as everyone seems to drive a small bus. It isn’t cheap (bars, restaurants or supermarket) but prices are not over the top and overall it is not unpleasant. We hired a car for a week which allowed us to see some of the sites (historical & landscape) and visit some of the more remote and very beautiful beaches. We went by bus to St. Johns (worth it and easy) and used a taxi to go to a cricket match (which was great, the 20-20 tournament was on). We didn’t spend a lot of time on the Jolly Harbour beach, it was no use for snorkelling as the viz seemed permanently bad due to suspended sand and there were too many jet-skis, mini-yachts, trip sellers etc. It was a fine option 5 minutes from our villa for a swim and a place to watch the spectacular sunsets though!

Dive Centres
I looked at a few before setting off, but there are precious few trip reports around, their web sites tend to be out of date and the ones I tried didn’t reply to my emails. We took the easy option and dived with Jolly Dive, which is on the beach at Jolly Harbour. We toyed with hooking up with a southern dive centre to dive at that end of the island but in the end decided this was going to be too much hassle. Incidentally, while we were on the island we heard a story that a dive trip from Sandals (a posh hotel in the north-west of the island) had left two divers in the sea! Apparently the boat returned and the divers’ wives were looking for them, only to be told they had already disembarked and were probably in the bar or their rooms. Unable to find them they retuned to the boat, pointing out that there husbands’ gear (towel etc.) was still on it! Only at this point was the alarm raised, Caribbean Helicopters found the two divers, one had swum to the reef and the other was holding on to some sort of buoy – 5 hours in the water! I wonder what would have happened if they’d not been on holiday with people to miss them!!

Jolly Dive is American owned and run, they are long established (been on the island around 30 years). It is a friendly centre, well run and delivers a pleasant, if not spectacular, selection of dives. They mainly dive in various areas straight off the west coast (boat trip usually around 30 minutes each way), but they did go down to the south (at least as far as Cades Reef) while we were there. We saw a good selection of nurse sharks, rays, a turtle and plenty of lobsters and other fish. The coral is good but looks like it had a battering in the last hurricane and is certainly not Red Sea standard. The dives tend to be around 20 metres for the first one followed by a relatively short surface interval then a shallower second dive. A couple of times my Gekko was warning I was getting close to running out of no-deco time on the second dive; once I had to move shallower (which was fine as there was a suitable area to finish the dive on) and once I had to end the dive a few minutes early. This morning schedule is to leave at 9.00 and return around 1.00 p.m. probably to accommodate people who get lunch in the Jolly Beach hotel, but it suited me as well as I didn’t return too late for my non-diving partner. They also do a single afternoon dive which seemed to be mainly (but not totally) used for training dives; they will also accommodate snorkellers on these afternoon trips which can be a good way of reaching Cades Reef for other than diving. The boat is not huge but was big enough for the number of divers they take (around 12 at the most) and given you spend little time sitting round on the boat it is fine.

A friend with me hired equipment and it was in decent condition and worked fine. Some of it is in PSI rather than BAR although they are moving towards being all BAR. The gear they use has the octopus built-in to the BCD hose so if you did need to share you have to pass your primary to your buddy. They rent out shorties; although not everyone bothers (equally some wore full wetsuits). I wore my own shortie for 10 dives and felt fine; my friend started in T-shirt and shorts but did add a shortie as the week went on.

Conclusion
We would return to Antigua, the island is beautiful and we liked the people. Jolly Harbour is a very practical place to stay in terms of facilities and location, particularly if you prefer self-catering accommodation. I doubt the diving will vary greatly wherever you are located on the island. Diving with Jolly Dive was both relaxed and fun, the dives were well led and the guides were knowledgeable in terms of both finding and identifying marine life. An argument could probably be made for diving off the South Coast to reach some of the more “well known” Antigua dives but you need to consider the locations of the dive centres there, one is in an expensive resort (St. James Club) that actually restricts access and there is another in English Harbour but I don’t think I’d choose to stay in that part of the island. So Jolly Dive gets my vote!

[Fiona]

Originally Posted by Titanic

what was so interesting in the first picture and I hope that isn't you with the turtle.

[Big Kahuna]

Glad you enjoyed it!
The turtles were really friendly when we were there - wonder if it was the same one?

How are Paul & "mother hen"?

[Big Kahuna]

Originally Posted by Fiona

what was so interesting in the first picture and I hope that isn't you with the turtle.

IIRC the 1st shot looks like the boat anchored just off jolly beach - straws were usually drawn as to who swam out each morning to bring her in.

[Titanic]

From memory I think the first picture came about with a nurse shark well secured under the ledge, I had a quick look then backed out following which the picture took place...

No, that's not me with the turtle, but I have to say it did seem totally unphased by the group.
Just after this as I was hanging watching it swam towards me then lodged itself against me (sort of chest to chest) with its face right in mine and stayed there for what seemed ages (probabnly 15- 20 seconds)!!
I was amazed to the extent my buoyancy suffered somewhat but it was an experience I'll never forget.

[Fiona]

Obviously I meant the top picture in the quote.

I have been to Antigua 5 times, once at Carnival and loved each visit, I would go again but my holidays now are dive trips.

[Big Kahuna]

Originally Posted by Fiona

Obviously I meant the top picture in the quote.

i'll get my coat

[Titanic]

Originally Posted by Big Kahuna

Glad you enjoyed it!
The turtles were really friendly when we were there - wonder if it was the same one?

How are Paul & "mother hen"?

They were both great!
Seemed in fine form and were looking for ways to attract more divers (I think they're hoping to offer holidays soon, linked with one of the hotels).

Paul did all dives in a red bow tie (and a few other things).

[Titanic]

Originally Posted by Big Kahuna

IIRC the 1st shot looks like the boat anchored just off jolly beach - straws were usually drawn as to who swam out each morning to bring her in.

One of the (American) dive leaders, Tim, was getting over an ear infection so each morning he swam out and recovered the boat so we were spared that. His father Bobby also joined many of the dives, he was amazing at finding marine life, he was into everything. I think they've been out there a while...