ST. JOHN'S, Antigua -- Sailors and beachcombers could happily spend a year darting along the coast of Antigua, exploring a different beach every day until the sand in the hourglass hits 365 -- 365 days, 365 beaches.
And what sand -- some of the finest, whitest in the Caribbean, a wonderful by-product of Antigua's relatively dry, flat coral, limestone and volcanic base. There may be no tumbling waterfalls or dramatic rivers plunging into the sea here, but many beachcombers would prefer the island's calm, reef-rimmed strands any day.
Britain's Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones blazed the trail to Antigua's beaches on their 1960 honeymoon, followed decades later by Princess Diana and her two sons in her post-divorce flight from the paparazzi. Pop nobility, such as Oprah Winfrey, Pierce Brosnan, Charlotte Church and Georgio Armani, have booked in, too, leading to Antigua's crown as "Best Island for Celeb Spotting" in Caribbean Travel and Life magazine's 2007 readers' choice awards.
The beaches and shoreline will be thumping with reggae and salsa dancing this year, as Antigua hosts some of the Caribbean's biggest events: the 20th Anniversary Classic Yacht Regatta, the 40th Anniversary Sailing Week and the calypso jump-up of them all -- the 50th Anniversary Carnival.
One more blast is a first-time sporting coup, Antigua's inaugural hosting of an International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup match from March 27 to April 8 (www.westindiescricket.com). Islanders can't wait to show off their new cricket stadium, sparkling white with a cobalt roof, named for their homegrown cricket legend, Sir Vivian Richards.
Cricket? Yachting? Yes, Antigua, the largest of the English-speaking Leeward Islands, was Britain's colony for more than three centuries, gaining limited freedom in 1967.
In 1981, Antigua, Barbuda, a coral island 30 miles north of Antigua, and Redonda, a small, uninhabited island now a nature preserve, formed the nation of Antigua and Barbuda. Before that, England held its Antiguan safe harbors and sugar plantations close, until both outlived their usefulness.
Today, sugar cane is just a juicy treat to buy from a roadside vendor. The harbors, though, have had a resurgence as some of the most popular in the Caribbean.
Boats will arrive from all over the sailing world for summer's Carnival, with Wadadli beer and Cavalier rum flowing like rivers. The festival takes over the Antigua Recreational Grounds and the narrow streets of Antigua's capital, St. John's.
Calypso groups will vie for the best local satiric song, maybe pillorying a politician's latest gaffe. Slaves developed calypso when they were forbidden to speak to each other in the fields. Soca teams, who blend slower American soul with upbeat calypso, will see who can get the most people up and dancing as they lead with their killer moves.
The local band favorite, The Burning Flames, will play outdoors at the Lion's Den, and somewhere in the city the dancing will go on till dawn. On Antigua, Carnival is not a wild fling in the weeks running up to Easter, as it is in New Orleans' Mardi Gras, for instance, or Brazil's bawdy Carnival. Instead, it's a celebration of Britain's abolition of slavery on Aug. 1, 1834.
This was, as it turned out, a hollow landmark for nearly a century. African slaves continued to work on the sugar plantations as they and their families had since the mid-1600s -- right into the 1920s.
Betty's Hope was one of the first sugar plantations on Antigua, set up in 1674 by Sir Christopher Codrington. It remained in the Codrington estate into the 1920s, with workers continuing much as they had under slavery. This north mill is the only working sugar mill in the Caribbean.
"Occasionally a black man would get off a ship in Antigua and tell people that slavery was abolished," said guide Eric Limerick as he drove into Liberta, the first Antiguan hamlet liberated. "It was in the interest of the plantation owners and of the British governors, who were also plantation owners, not to tell."
On some plantations, such as Betty's Hope outside the village of Pares, families continued in the feudal system until the last death throes of the sugar industry in the 1960s. Now, it seems that some carnival dancers salsa all the harder to make up for those lost decades.
Scores of derelict stone sugar mills are sprinkled among the greenery that overtook the old fields, but only Betty's Hope from 1674 has been restored to show a glimpse of the oppressive system that thrived for more than two centuries. To supply manpower, Britain doubled the island's population with African slaves.
Betty's Hope was one of Antigua's first sugar plantations. Its meticulous records from 1827 list 312 slaves, including one "lunatic" and 10 too old to work any longer.
The Dow's Hill Interpretation Centre on Shirley Heights traces more than 2,000 years of island history, including the infamous slave triangle linking Africa, the West Indies and the American colonies. Most vestiges of the trade are gone -- Redcliffe Quay in St. John's, once headquarters of the slave market, is now a warren of posh shops painted endearing Caribbean colors. But just look off the promontory of Shirley Heights, ringed by its own fort ruins, and it's easy to see how forcefully England intended to defend her sugar-and-rum empire and her royal fleet.
Down below, the old ramparts of Fort Berkeley corral the calm waters of English Harbour, pointing the way to Nelson's Dockyard National Park, the only working 18th-century Georgian dockyard in the world.
Nelson's Dockyard is Antigua's undisputed jewel, a restoration of the British naval center in the Caribbean from 1725 to 1889. Antigua is, in sailor's parlance, a "hurricane hole," which sheltered the ships of Britain's great naval hero, Adm. Horatio Nelson.
Nelson was just 26 when he sailed to Antigua on the Boreas as Commander of the Leeward Islands Station. Headquartered at English Harbour from 1784 to 1787, he oversaw a network that cleaned, repaired and provisioned His Majesty's ships.
Nelson would recognize the sturdy stone buildings of his old command, but what would he make of racks of batiked sundresses billowing out boutique doorways or reggae music thumping at the Galley Bar? Would he, too, grab a marker and write a message on the pub's white rafters?
For a few dollars, a costumed guide will show you the Copper and Lumber Store, now a hotel with a towering royal palm, planted by Princess Margaret on her honeymoon. Then there's the Working Mast House, with a pottery, the Admiral's Kitchen with a bakery, the Officer's Quarters, with shops, bars and a scuba center.
You can't miss the Admiral's House, built for admirals who never lived there. Look for the bust of Nelson over the door, but don't be misled -- he died in 1805's Battle of Trafalgar, a half-century before the house was built. It's now the Dockyard Museum, with Nelson's telescope and tea caddy on show.
As they have for centuries, vessels still head for the calm waters and protective hills of Nelson's English Harbour. On one rainy/sunny afternoon, the glossy wooden yacht Rebecca is in from Newport, R.I., demanding admiration in her slip at the end of the jetty.
Sure enough, surrounded by Gallic and British yachters raising a glass or two in the Galley Bar, I watch as a rainbow pops out like a victory arch crowning her masts. For a moment, it feels like an Antiguan benediction.
