Many visitors fail to leave Antigua and they all have a story about how they got there. Tony was a British Airways steward who came to the island and never left. He's been there 20 years now running sailing trips round the island. Paul, who looks like a French Tom Conti, followed his diplomat family - his father was UN ambassador and his sister the French consul on the island. They've gone now but he stayed to run a wine importing company. Terrence came two years ago from Leicester to visit family and never went back. "Why would I go back?" he asks looking down the fine white beach. "But you've got to get off the island at least once a year or you crack up," he adds.
What might make you "crack up" is referred to fondly by ex-pats and regular visitors alike as "Antigua time". Eric Clapton built a rehab centre here and the story goes that he chose it because most people dry out by the time the drink they ordered turns up. The pace here is very, very slow: the ultimate antidote to city life, or the ultimate frustration, depending on how much you relax. I relaxed and I loved it.
Antigua is the island dream. Its sand is as perfect as any on the Caribbean, sunsets as dramatic and water as warm and clear. It has steel bands, coral reef and palm tree-framed views from seafood restaurants, where menus had me groaning "no more lobster, please". These are the reasons people go to the Caribbean. But sit still for a while, strike up a conversation and strange things (things that I don't think happen anywhere else) start to happen.
Take Catherine's Cafe, a hidden-away restaurant on English Harbour, the old dilapidated port of the island. We went there for lunch and stayed to dance in the kitchen while Catherine, a recent arrival from France who is plainly a little bonkers, freely grabbed for our glasses and chugged back the ice cold-rosé. The best meal I had on the island - spongy white snapper and obscenely buttery tarte tatin - descended into chaos.
Similarly Antigua Village at Dickenson Bay, my home for the week, revealed some intriguing characters. The village, a mini-resort, consists of nearly 100 apartments, studios and villas. Some are time-shares, the rest are privately owned by Antiguan, British, American and Canadian families. Around half are in the soon-to-be relaunched "Owners' Club", meaning you can rent them. And you'd want to: It's the classiest co-operative you could imagine.
In early October, before the high season kicks in, the beach in front of the village is practically deserted but the Coconut Grove restaurant is friendly and full. Get a stool at the bar and you'll become well acquainted with Wesley, the bar man, who can show you how to mix a mean cocktail. Or Robert, famous for the plaque on the bar which declares it "Robert's corner". Either way you leave knowing more about the people sharing the bar with you than their mother would want you to.
Most visitors to the island will probably head over to Shirley Heights, an outdoor barbecue-cum-nightclub with a spectacular view out to the ocean and the sunset. As the sun goes down the steel band kicks in. By the time the stars come out the reggae band is crooning cover versions and everyone is dancing with a cheesy smile on their sun and rum-blushed faces.
This sort of "sitcom tourism" is typified with a day trip to Prickly Pear Island. Miguel and his wife Josephine (Terrence's great uncle and aunt) run day trips to what is basically a lump of rock amongst the coral with a small shifting beach and a ramshackle beach hut. The idea is that you spend a day there with unlimited rum punch, cold beer, conch curry and lobster salad, take in some snorkelling and lounge in the sun listening to Miguel's stories and his claim that he, rather than Josephine, is the boss. The true desert island beach experience? Get a busy day, as we did, and you can start longing for the quiet of the Antiguan mainland. "Close your eyes and you could be anywhere," muttered my companion as we squeezed in another lounger.
The trip to Prickly Pear also reveals some of the sadder sights of the island. Antigua still bears many of the scars of Hurricane Louis, the 1995 storms which devastated much of the island and its only industry, tourism. The point where the little boat departs for Prickly Pear is proof of this. You have to walk through a deserted hotel, whose 1920s-flavoured grandeur, complete with outdoor dancefloor, glitters under a layer of coconut husks and sand. Elsewhere breathtaking beaches are littered with half-built buildings and shells of once-happy holiday homes. The tourist board will regularly claim that there are 365 beaches, one for every day of the year. Some are a little worse for wear nowadays.
A day trip to the majestic sugar mills at Betty's Hope, named after the daughter of the first British controller of the island, are another sad reminder of the island's dependency on tourism. The sugar mills, once the main income on the island, and integral to the island's history, are nothing more than a deserted attraction. Twinned with a clearly corrupt government which, at the time I visited hadn't paid a nurse, postman or any public sector worker for six weeks, the island feels as if it's on very fragile ground.
But the islanders that I met - Antiguans and ex-pats - were instinctively proud of their home, though they will often disagree with one another on the causes of the current problems. Some blame the government, others the international hotels which export much of the profits of tourism. One German sailor illustrated the gulf between ex-pats and Antiguans with the offensive suggestion that the islanders were lazy because of their African heritage.
Rastari, 22, works with the horses that tourists can rent for a ride round Dickenson Bay. "I love Jamaica," he says. "It has more culture than here. But I would never leave my island. I love the people and our lives here. Everywhere else people just get too busy." And I loved it too. A week in Antigua had me ready to face 10 mile per hour restrictions on London's tube with a smile on my face. Antiguan time may be a frustration for some, but it definitely leaves you wondering who has it right.
Way to go
BWIA West Indies Airways, flies daily from London Heathrow to the Caribbean, including two non-stop flights a week to Antigua. Economy class fares start from £490 return, plus taxes (£29.30).
Accommodation at Antigua Village ranges from $160 a night for a studio apartment to $430 for a villa on the beach. antiguavillage.net
