It’s day 7 of Antigua Holiday. I had been driving quite a lot this vacation and wanted to chill out and enjoy the Halcyon Cove experience. Fenton the resorts activity manager was around now and it was good/funny to see him around entertaining the guests with aqua aerobics, beach cricket and volleyball. He went and found us the volleyball and at request put up the net across the pool and we had a fun game before lunchtime with some Canadian folks. Yes aqua aerobics had not been skipped either so we were burning calories too. Today was to be a mega burning day. Aqua aerobics does that great thing getting the oxygen back into the body after the alcohol of the night before seems to drain it all away. Alcohol has no good effects apart from the reason why we do it. We were all enjoying very early cocktails I like my rum runners but hadn’t had any lately and couldn’t recall why I think the last may have been in key largo. It was a Saturday, my most recent one. Today was going to be about enjoying the sun as well and my shuffle and reading a bit too. With that mix of morning activity lunchtime came and it was over to the outdoors lunch area.
We awoke at stupid O’Clock in Antigua and not tired after a good sleep in the resort after our Shirley Heights evening. Onto one of the things that had always delighted me like a daisy in spring was breakfast in the Halcyon Rex. A full buffet style is what you get and the bacon is american style in case you are wondering. If you don’t know what that means then look forward to that one day ! We had planned to stay and enjoy the resort today or at least the morning part and we found a spot by the pool. The resort was quite a lot busier than I had remembered it and it wasn’t managing to keep us in the comfort we would like in terms of comfortable sun loungers. They were the plastic with nylon fabric inners but those had long since had way too many big buts and boobs in them stretching them so that they now offered less support and so you can feel the plastic frame. I elected with my bad back to lie on the grass. Erol was an old acquaintance from previous visits and I was pleased to see him always a funny bubbly character was taking the aqua aerobics in the resort for the start of the week before another guy Fenton would return. With my bad back this was a great opportunity for some low impact exercise that I have had to stick to for some months now. I did manage to get San to join me. It was a fun and hard as you wanted to make it exercise that was quite enjoyable and clean. That morning we also went for a stroll the length of Dickenson Bay past Sandals Antigua Buccaneers and Coconut Grove and Ana’s on the beach to name a few. There are stalls of local vendors at random points never too many though and its a great place and beach to stroll along.
San and Cal at the far side of Dickenson Bay where a boat has been washed ashore
We were not yet used to the sun but took our time as in Antigua style and it was all starting to feel very nice the week was going to be great.
Dickenson Bay
Abandoned boat in Antigua
We got back and went to the buffet lunch at the Carib Bar which is outside, had a glass of wine and enjoyed the hamburger and curried chicken, and various other good things I could cram on mine. We were feeling the midday heat and decided to head back to the room and get some sun free a/c. Sanchia had noted that she had a racing pulse and brushed it aside like it happens a lot. So I thought no more of it at that point but I shall take note of this in future. It was apparent that San was not 100% very quickly and her symptoms became rapidly worsening. I checked on the option if needed to get a doctor and was informed the call out charge alone was $200 US !!! As our phone was not working in the room I got a little angry again and ranted slightly at reception as it was a pain to have to converse manually at the desk each time when I simply wanted to ring. Now leaving San in the room to check about the doctor the importance of the phone irritated me as I had already mentioned it. Tour companies etc will also get through to you via the phone. They need to be working. Sorry Sanchia let’s give it 15 minutes before we call the doctor I said. Sanchia stabilised and it didn’t look so grave and we held off on the exorbitant doctor. It turned out we think that it was Heat Stroke. We wrote off the afternoon and evening but we were glad that she was recovering from her horrid symptoms that were mostly dizziness and pulse related. We did start to think that we should be cautious and not book any scuba diving however well we felt mostly for myself I developed a cold the day before leaving and it was still present.
An update to the blog post below and accurate measure / report of the storm can be found in the Antigua Observer today
Original blog follows..I think it was tropical storm chantal and I saw a water shoot or tornado at sea on the front cover today.
A storm that plagued the islands of Barbados and St Lucia (so I was told by a local guy) missing us yesterday still brought a bit more rain and higher winds which made Dickenson Bay a bit less fun as the sand was whipping up. We still had some fun and it was cruise ship day and we got to spy on the developments for the Halcyon Rex – they are increasing the shade around the BBQ and entertainment areas (that much we can see).
Today we will swing around and skip the beach doing some shopping and enjoying other people’s AC like at woods mall. We did swap out our rental car yesterday as an upgrade as I was feeling flush for some unknown reason. We are now enjoying the extra space of the Suzuki Vitara and left the Hyundai Terios behind which grew on me but was a little small in some ways. I hope to pick up a small sim for the iphone today we shall see.
