Return to Wadadli - Turner's Beach & Ffreyes Beach

I'm sure you wouldn't mind some beach pictures, right? I'm missing Antigua's beaches right now.

The saying in Antigua is that there are 365 beaches, one for every day of the year. Sometimes I think that's true. There are many little inlets and coves. Growing up, I remember sometimes going to the beach and being one a few people there.

Our hotel, Sugar Ridge, will shuttle you to the nearby beaches and has relationships with some of the local beach restaurants and bars. We decided to go to Turner's Beach and Ffreyes Beach. Here's a little bit of what we saw.

Our first beach visit was to Turner's Beach.

I'm used to not having many people on the beach. We thought we had lucked out when we got there because there were no people.

Eventually people came, but there is nothing like the crush of people you can sometimes see in the U.S.

There's a restaurant here as well as bathrooms, which I thought was mighty convenient.

I love clear water.

Can you see my feet?

Turner's Beach seemed like a popular pit stop/drop off point for some of the catamaran and sailboat tours that you can take around the island.

The other beach we were able to see was Ffryes Beach, which is actually fairly popular with local Antiguans. We saw very few tourists here, which was different than the heavy tourist presence at Turner's.

It's pretty empty when you get there early.

There were some kids that looked like they were camping overnight and some church groups. We were there on a Sunday, which is a big beach days for Antiguans.

There are a few tourists in the picture, too.

At the top of a hill at one end of Ffreyes Beach is Dennis' Restaurant. We at lunch there. It was good albeit a little expensive. I will say this: I think all-inclusive resorts actually stifle the development of a restaurant scene in Antigua and also ensure that the restaurants can charge a pretty penny. There are probably more potent forces pushing up food and dining prices there (having to import so much doesn't help), but our meal shouldn't have been as expensive as it was.

Dennis' Restaurant has great views of the other side of Ffreyes Bay. The beach opposite the one where we were is also known locally as Small Ffreyes. :) We were at sitting and swimming at Big Ffreyes. By the way, this is what we were looking at as Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene was ravaging the Northeast.

The view of Ffreyes Bay from Dennis'

Cocobay Resort. We almost stayed here.

Our meal at Dennis': Curry goat, rice and peas (actually kidney beans), a small salad and something that I think is yams. More about local food in another post.

There was a little of live entertainment while we were there.

Some of his songs had some questionable lyrics. :)

So that was our beach time. I wish we had more opportunities to just lounge at the beach, but I think we need a longer trip. Husband J? :) Do you understand why I am a beach snob now? I've been spoiled!