We are fortunate to live in Atlanta, and have
become accustomed to the luxury of non-stop flights
to many destinations around the world. So when
we planned our annual spring break trip with
our kids, a non-stop flight was a prerequisite.
In past we have vacationed in the Cayman Islands,
and Turks and Caicos. Luckily for us, in early
2006 Delta started direct flights to Antigua,
making it effectively four hours away. Antigua
is one of the English-speaking Leeward Islands
in the Lesser Antilles, and has a saying that
it has 365 beaches, one for every day of the
year. We could not wait to explore them.
We made one travelgirl
mistake; we checked all of our luggage. We
were running a little late when we got to the
Atlanta airport, so we used the curbside International
check-in, which we had never tried before.
When we finally made it up to the check-in
counter, the lady told us, “You made it by one minute.” Standing
there with looks of incomprehension on our faces,
she explained, “The computer system locks
us out one hour prior to scheduled departure.
So we couldn’t have checked your bags if
you had been any later.” Even so, our bags
didn’t make it. Travelgirl tip: Always
bring toiletries, underwear, a swimsuit and sunscreen
in your carry-on baggage.
During our descent, our
six-year-old daughter cried because she couldn’t equalize the
pressure in her ears. Travelgirl tip: if this
happens to your child, get her to blow her nose
- it works like a charm. After an exasperatingly
long wait through immigration, we realized that
our bags did not make it to Antigua with us. “Don’t
worry,” they told us. We decided to take
their advice to heart and went to the resort
- Sunsail, Colonna. Even on Sunday we were able
to buy bathing suits, T-shirts, and essentials
at the small gift shop in the reception area.
They contacted the airport and assured us our
luggage would arrive the next day, which it did
with minimal impact on our holiday.
For the first time, we
had chosen to stay at an all-inclusive resort
that provided a “specialist” holiday.
As the name implies, Sunsail provides a sailing
experience, and if you don’t know how to
sail when you arrive, you will by the time you
leave. We found Sunsail to be a well-run operation.
Although the parent company has seven other resorts
in the Mediterranean, three in Greece and four
in Turkey, Sunsail, Colonna is its only venue
in the Caribbean, which it opened in 1999. The
general manager, Alistair Forrest, a daily presence,
has lived in Antigua for 14 years and has been
with Sunsail for the past three years.
If we have one complaint about Sunsail, it has
to do with timing. While the flight from Atlanta
to Antigua is weekly on Sundays, the majority
of the guests at Sunsail arrive on a weekly Friday
flight from London. Consequently, we were out-of-sync
with most of the people there, missed the initial
orientation, and had some catching up to do.
Our main problem with the Sunsail operation was
that they did not provide us with our own orientation
and the reservations for lessons that we had
made online weeks ahead of time never made it
to the island. By now, their online reservations
system (www.sunsail.com) has probably been fixed
and this should not be a problem. Nevertheless,
we suggest that you confirm any lesson reservations
that you make.
Even though the place
was about 85% occupied, it never seemed crowded.
The resort is carefully laid out with an open-air
reception area incorporating one of the many
defunct sugar mills that dot the island. From
there, you have the apartments that surround
a very large, beautiful pool that had a picturesque
wooden bridge spanning one corner. From a parents
point of view it was very safe, as the pool
was discreetly surrounded and gated with safety
gates. Beyond the pool was a gazebo that looked
over the beach and volleyball nets and the
protected cove for swimming. Next to the beach
was the central outdoor dining hall, bar and
sailing area. Behind the sailing area you find
the beach villas and just behind those are
stone walkways leading to the Garden Villas.
The resort was clean, well kept, and also had
tennis courts, free bicycles, a massage and beauty
center, and a PADI five-star dive center. Plans
are in place for a gym, expanded luxury spa called “Serenity” and
a new kid’s club. We loved the compound
feel of the resort, with stone walkways and “private” gardens
in front of the garden villas. The children quickly
learned their way around the compound and as
long as they checked in periodically with an
adult, they had free reign of the place.
Sunsail is geared towards
families. There is a kids club that serves
both a babysitting function and as a kids activity
center. The kids club followed OFSTED regulations,
which is the English equivalent of NAEYC certification
for daycare centers in the USA. The manager
of the kids club, Jayne, and her second, Anne
Marie, meet with you at the beginning of the
week to see what your interests were with respect
to your children to optimize yours and your
kids “fun time.” You
could sign your kids in at 8:45 am, meet up with
them at lunch and pick them up at “tea
time” around 4:45 in the afternoon when
the sailing beach closed. For the older children,
they had sailing lessons, tennis clinics and
swimming. For the toddlers, they had playrooms,
craft activities, swimming and beach activities.
For the babies, they had a daycare located in
a villa right on the beach. Sunsail is famous
for its kid’s clubs, and as Alistair said, “We’re
all about relaxing. You can come here and just
unwind. Or leave the kids and just go sail.”
Although there are many
other activities available, such as diving,
snorkeling, and tennis, Sunsail is about sailing.
Sunsail is a Royal Yachting Association (RYA)
certified international training center that
provides certificate courses for all levels
of expertise. All the instructors are RYA instructor
certified, and for that reason most of them
are young men and women from England who have
been sailing in clubs since they were in middle
school and have taken time off before or after
university education. They were good sailors,
teachers, very friendly, and patient with the
children. My husband Carlos learned how to
sail solo and earned a basic RYA certificate
for sailing. Our kids also progressed nicely,
especially our ten-year-old son, who learned
to sail solo as well. Our six-year-old daughter
certainly had the concepts down, but couldn’t
physically manage the sails and the tiller at
the same time by herself.
The resort adhered to
the RYA standard for safety boats, and they
had two safety boats out at all times even
if it meant exceeding the minimum standard
of one safety boat for 12 sailing boats on
the water. They also had a lookout placed in
a crow’s nest at the end of the sailing
cove peninsula on a radio at all times. My parents
took out a 16-foot boat and found out how quickly
the safety boats could respond when they managed
to capsize it. The lads on the boats brought
them in while one of them righted the boat and
brought it in. In fact, they tested the safety
boats response time more than once.
We sailed almost every day, except when the
weather and wind would not permit. Even so, we
took advantages of opportunities to explore Antigua
in other ways. One day we took out bikes on the
honor system and rode into the village where
we passed small villages and a cricket pitch
under construction. The cricket world cup will
be held in the Caribbean next year, and we saw
several new stadiums under construction on the
island. The countryside has nice rolling hills,
and the topography is mountainous and interesting.
There is also a spectacularly long beach, known
as Jabberwock beach, with soft white sand and
crystal clear water less than a mile away. Another
day we took out one of the motorboats and took
the kids for a ride to Prickly Pear Island, where
we anchored and snorkeled on the reef surrounding
it. On the way back, we stopped and tried our
hand at fishing with the rod that we had brought
with us and some bait that one of sailing instructors
had given my kids. Because we had stopped midway
between the island and the resort, the safety
boat came to check on us, which again reinforced
the safety of sailing and boating at Sunsail.
He wished us luck with our fishing and went back
to the resort. We had no luck that day, but later
that week the kids caught a lovely fish that
the chefs happily cleaned and cooked for a delicious
dinner.
Towards the end of the
week, we rented a car at the resort and seriously
explored the island. Antigua’s economy used to be based on sugar
cane and the countryside is dotted with old stone
sugar mills. Today the economy is based primarily
on tourism, although they make wonderful rum
from sugar cane, and they are the source for
the black pineapple that is native to Antigua,
and is known as the sweetest of the pineapples.
We were struck by how well the roads were maintained,
and discovered that Antigua has recently received
$50 million from the USA for infrastructure.
Driving into the capital, St John’s, we
stopped in at the local grocery store where we
bought some of the island rum, which is very
good and less expensive than the duty free shop
in the airport. We toured the great Cathedral
of St. John’s at the top of the hill in
town, and we saw Fort James, which protects the
entrance to the harbor and has cannons stamped
with the seal of King George III. We also checked
out several of the islands 365 beaches, all of
them uncrowded and open to the public, where
we saw families out enjoying themselves.
Antigua has a beautiful
rugged coastline with many natural harbours.
While the most famous of these harbors is English
Harbor, the most beautiful is Falmouth Harbor.
The two harbors are right next to each other,
within an easy, five minute walk of each other.
Both Harbors are filled with exquisite and
magnificent sailing yachts. In fact, while
we were visiting some friends in Falmouth Harbor
who were sailing across the Atlantic, we saw
the largest private sailing yacht in the world,
the Mirabella V, which is too large to pass
through the Panama Canal. Its mast is so high
that at night we mistook its flashing red light
for a radio tower. Each year, from April to
May, Antigua hosts several sailing regattas,
the largest of which is called Rolex Antigua
Sailing Week. It is considered to be one of
the top five regattas in the world, lasting
five days and attracting up to 250 yachts and
many Olympic, America’s Cup and round-the-world
sailors who gather from all over the world to
race.
English Harbor, where
Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson headquartered the
British Fleet of the Leeward Islands during
the Napoleonic Wars, has the most perfect natural
protection from the seas imaginable and is
still used as a safe haven from hurricanes.
This historic area encompasses 15 square miles
and includes Nelson’s Dockyard and National
Park. Today it has been completely restored and
is the only functioning Georgian Dockyard in
the world. If there is a single sight to see
in all of Antigua, it is Shirley Heights, an
observation post 400 feet high above English
Harbor. There, the unbelievable panoramic view
reaches far across the island, and on a clear
day you can see all the way to Montserrat. Also
at the summit is a restaurant that features steel
drum bands twice a week and is an incredible
spot to watch the sunset.
On Friday, we had our own sailing regatta at
Sunsail, and I got to put to use the skills I
had learned earlier in the week. We sailed the
course we had learned earlier in the week, and
had a special banquet dinner that evening with
lobster and steak out on the beach. After dinner,
everyone who participated in the race and won
first or second place (including me) received
a bottle of champagne. All in all, it was a festive
finish to a relaxing, fun-filled week.
For more information on Sunsail, visit http://www.sunsail.com/clubs/destinations/antigua/colonna
