The official language of Antigua is English. Heavily accented, but English. This reduces the likelihood of running into someone who doesn’t understand you if you decide to go roaming around this fairly good-sized island, then get a little bit lost and need to ask directions (re-read that. You’ll get it). Not that it would be a problem (getting lost)—the island is less than half an hour across.

Suppose you had $50 in your pocket and didn’t feel like going shopping. Again. You could do worse than rent a motor scooter and go looking around on your own.

Just remember to give yourself half an hour to get back to the ship. Instructions on how to do this and maybe some of the adventures you’ll have coming up in the next few posts.

Personal note: I’m just coming off the worst cold I’ve had in a decade—three days in bed, and I’m still weak. Hence the dearth of posts this week. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Antigua is a pretty interesting place.

Two is the key number for St. Maarten. The island has a Dutch and a French side. The port in St. Maarten (note the two “a’s”) Has two piers and they are working on doubling its capacity. They even have two tourist areas. The port, of course, serves those who don’t want to go anywhere, just show me the shops, but a pleasant half-mile walk along the road with shipyards on one side and a mountain on the other takes you to the capital with its two-street shopping area. With two ice cream stores.

St. Maartin rewards the curious shopper. The two main streets are connected by clean, crowded alleys, full of interesting shops. here are two: A little cigar and sundry shop, called Juggie’s Place. The motto on his door is “We don’t do fakes,” and it’s run by a somewhat intimidating-looking but friendly fellow. His claim to fame is that he advertises “You can use clean restrooms, free!” Apparently the islond gives you two restroom choices—be a customer, or use an uncared-for facility. He said he suddenly started getting people into his store when he offered this third alternative. He has this guy outside his door:

Rasta Claus

The watchword for this guy is the vaguely sinister admonition that you need to watch out for what he might bring you for Christmas.

The other remarkable business is an excursion available from your ship, called Snorkel Safaris. “Safari” might be a bit of an overstatement, but the two young guys (mid-20′s) who run the operation have fixed up a pretty good underwater park (scuttled some wrecks, built an underwater walkway) a few minutes by water from the port. They have a nice, well-equipped pontoon “island” equipped with a grill and coolers for beverages. They serve the best hamburger I had on the whole cruise. You get some training and gear, and spend as long as you want poking around the bay. When you’re done, they’ll drop you off in town or at the port. Money well spent. I can’t find the photo of the very photogenic couple who was with us, or I’d share it. Maybe my wife deleted it.

We saw two retired America’s Cup sailboats on the way to town. St. Maartin is the only island to offer a ride on one, and you get to pick between them.

America's Cup racers

The town has a reputation for good shopping— the price one place offered on a Nikon camera body was really tempting. But the town has a million jewelry stores—at this point the theme of two breaks down.

Have you been to the French side? Tell us about it.

The cruise lines offer pricey shore excursions, generally of good quality, and with a vague assurance that you will be safer if you take one of their excursions. You do get something for what you pay—although the companies that provide the excursions are local businesses, they are checked by the cruise lines and held to fairly high standards of performance.

But ain’t competition a wonderful thing? The folks not retained by the cruise lines can offer essentially the same services, and often for noticeably less. The island governments tend to watch over their flocks of entrepeneurs fairly well—after all, you don’t want golden-egg-laying tourists to depart your island unhappy.

Rent for the business owner goes up the closer you get to the port, so a short walk can take you to where the taxis have lower overhead and can afford to take you down the same roads for less. Always negotiate the fare in advance, and don’t be afraid to walk away from a fare you don’t want to pay. Remember, though, most of the fairs are fairly standardized, even if informally, and if you lowball someone, you might get less of a tour than someone willing to pay the usual amount might get.

Another thing that works in your favor: tips are not negotiated in advance, so your driver is Highly Motivated to be personable, informative, and helpful. Actual horror stories are few and far between.

So how have you done on your own? Tell us your adventures or horror stories in the comments.

St. Kitts has been an independent country for about 25 years. Four years ago they decided to switch from an agriculture-based economy to tourism. They are a small island, only half a mile wide at the narrowest, and roughly 30 miles the longest dimension. They couldn’t produce enough to compete even with the other Caribbean islands, much less the big producers like South America and the US. The change has made for a dramatic improvement in the standard of living, and the populace has embraced tourism with a vengeance. Their advertising is definitely edgier than what you’ll see elsewhere. One of their milder T-shirt mottos shows a cartoon person passed out, and the text, “If found, return to St. Kitts.”

Most of the islands in the Caribbean have a tourist area that serves as a barrier between the cruise ships and the interior of the island. St. Kitts has a small one, new and under construction, and their capital (Basseterre, French for base land) is immediately on the other side of that area, and it’s as tourist-friendly as any port area. The original old buildings give a good old-world atmosphere, and you get close-in shopping and an easy walking tour of the original town.

The island changed hands several times over the last couple centuries, and traces remain of those influences, mainly French and English. If you don’t want to ride around the whole island (definitely doable), take the “half-island tour” that takes you to a British fort that has been almost completely restored atop a dormant volcano core appropriately called “Brimstone Hill.”

Lime kiln on the road up Brimstone Hill. Unless you're alert, you'll miss it.

The view and camera opportunities are phenomenal. Do you have any good photos of St. Kitts? Share in the comments.

Pronounced “an tee gah, accent on the “ee” (that’s the penultimate syllable, for you grammar geeks).

If Dominica has 365 rivers, Antigua boasts 365 beaches. It also has the best harbor in the Caribbean, bar none. Admiral Lord Nelson built a naval port there, and now it’s a World Heritage Site. It was restored about 20 years ago, and it’s the finest example of Georgian architecture in the Western Hemisphere (my opinion). The harbor reaches far into the island, and by way of an S-shaped channel, so it’s even safe during a hurricane, unlike the other ports in the Caribbean.

Sailors have a long tradition of music. One song has the chorus:

I’m marching inward from the shore
Over me shoulder I’m carryin’ an oar
When someone asks me “what’s that funny thing ya got?”
I know I’ll never go to sea no more no more.

All that to mention that the song mentions Lord Nelson in one of its verses (sorry—I don’t know the exact words). He has a cure for seasickness: “Sit underneath a tree.”

Nelson's bay seen from a home on one of the hillsides.

Have you ever sat underneath a tree in Antigua? Tell us about it in the comments.