Falmouth Harbour is a large anchorage. Most boats gravitate towards Pigeon Beach in the southeast and the middle of the anchorage off Falmouth Harbour Marina and the Antigua Yacht Club Marina. We were trying to beat a rain cloud coming over the mountain, so headed for a big open space and quickly anchored. We liked the spot and stayed there. We looked around a spotted boats of people we knew and boat names we have heard on the radio, but never met. Clearly we wouldn’t be lonely.
Falmouth Harbour is just west of English Harbour, home of Nelson’s Dockyard. The dockyard was built in the seventeenth century and is the only continuously working Georgian dockyard in the world. Most of the buildings have been restored and are homes to modern businesses such as restaurants, clothing shops, a bakery, and a sail loft.
Looking down at Nelson's Dockyard
Pam and Jeff on Foggy Mountain invited us to join them for breakfast one morning in Nelson’s Dockyard. They have met a group of people who make it a daily event. We had a lot of fun, so we often joined them. The group is made up of mostly retirees. One of the locals refers to the group’s table a Pensioner’s Corner.
Breakfast in the Pensioner's Corner
The old dinghy dock between Nelson's Dockyard and the Antigua Yacht Club Marina
Crawling around in the old dinghy dock
Falmouth Harbour is separated from English Harbour by a peninsula called the Middle Ground. There is a trail from Pigeon Beach near the mouth of Falmouth Harbour that climbs up over the Middle Ground and ends at Nelson’s Dockyard. Along the way it passes the remains of an old barracks and three of the forts that guarded the harbours.
We have spent a lot of mornings hiking the trail and a few “roads” on the middle ground. These were exercise/bird watching hikes, but also helped us to figure out the best vantage points for watching the upcoming vintage boat races.
White Crowned Pigeon - a new bird for us
Where do little bugs come from?
Like most of the islands, Antigua has a bus system. Many of the buses are vans, but there are quite a few larger buses that look like they came out of tour service. Fares are cheap so we’ve taken the bus a few times. The buses run from here to the bus station in St. John, Antigua’s capitol. From there we have caught buses to Jolly Harbour on the west coast and to the shopping mall, grocery store, and cinema complex in St. John.
Bus station in St. John, Antigua
Jackie and Debbie shopping at the produce market across from the bus station
Next: Nonsuch Bay
The Adventures of Little Rosie 
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