We anchored in Falmouth Harbour home to Antiguas Yacht Club and the many events and businesses associated with sailing. We decided to head over to Falmouths town dock past some of the mega yachts in the harbor that had just been racing in the Antigua Sailing week event. Trust me these yachts are huge….

We wandered along the road towards English Harbour and walking around the dock everything seemed pretty empty and closed. Maybe it was too early to be out and about or they needed a rest after Sailing week? We wandered into English Harbour with its famous Dockyard named after Admiral Horatio Nelson. It’s now a National Park and all the buildings are used for the various sailing businesses.

We walked out to the Fort ruins at the point to get the panoramic view out and back to English Harbour. 

We stopped for a drink out on the Terrace at the Admirals Inn. Really impressive place with beautiful gardens. The stone pillars were the foundations for a sail loft that was mounted above them back in the day.

While in the dockyards we noticed the “Womble” a row boat (24ft long 6ft wide) that had rowed across the Atlantic four times. Hmmmmm……not for me.

The next day we decided to take a tour on our bikes and see a little more of the outskirts of Falmouth and English Harbour. Some of the houses are so colourful, which I like.

We climbed up towards Shirley Heights, which has views over the whole valley. The weather was a little on the damp side so we headed down to a beach called Galleon Bay opposite the Fort to see if things would clear.    We made our way over to the Slipway to a French restaurant called Catherine’s Cafe, which was right on the waterfront and the food was amazing. We arrived around noon for lunch and had the place to ourselves while we ate. When the rain finally left the restaurant was full. The owner told us that they were closing on Sunday for 5 months and that most restaurants in the area did this.

English Harbour and Falmouth are definetly more geared to the sailing community but there is a lot of history to wander around and see.

We put the scretcher up and sailed downwind towards Jolly Harbour past a number of Bays. The South Coast was very green.

We came back into those nice green blue waters near Jolly Harbour for groceries, laundry and to clear out ready to head to Deshaies in Guadeloupe. On our way out of the harbour we were followed closely by a sailing race, which started in the harbour.

We enjoyed Antigua and will be back as we missed going to the island of Barbuda, which is also meant to be incredible with great snorkling and nice pink sandy beaches.