Antigua’s tourist office that the island has 365 beaches, ‘one for each day of the year’. Lt has great reefs and wrecks for diving and snorkeling. On neighbouring Barbuda you can track the island’s fabled frigate birds and visit the Caribbean’s largest rookery. Barbuda is a quiet, single – village island that gets very few independent visitors, mainly ardent bird – watchers an d a few yachties enjoying its clear waters tranquil beaches. Antigua is a touch more happening but the pace is still deliciously slow.

December to mid – April

Exploring colonial – era sights, including a working mill at Betty’s and the 18 th – century Nelson’s Dockyard

Kicking on the island’s white – sand beaches

Diving coral canyons, wall drops and sea caves with marine life such as turtles, sharks and barracuda

Touring the Caribbean’s largest rookery, in Barbuda

Taking the scenic route along Fig Tree Drive

Snorkelling the coral – encrusted wreck of the Andes, lying in the middle of Deep Bay, its mast poking up above the water

Poking around the overgrown churchyard of Antigua’s first church, St Paul’s Anglican

Church – one of the island’s oldest buildings, dating to 1676

Read Jamaica Kincaid’s novel Annie John, which recounts growing up in Antigua.

Desmond Nicholson, president of the Antigua historical society, has published several works on the country, history, including Antigua, Barbuda and Redonda: A Historical Skecth

Listen to steel band, calypso and reggae masic

Wacth No Seed by Antiguan husband – and – wife team, director Howard Allen and producer Mitzi Allen

Eat duckanoo ( a dessert made with cornmeal, coconut, spices and brown sugar )

Or black pineapple, purported to be the sweetest of them all

Drink the island’s locally brewed rum Cavalier or English Habour, or try the local lager, Wadadli

Fire a grog ( drink rum )

Cricket players; rum; endless pristine with – sand beaches; dancing; calypso music; black pineapples

Barbuda has less than 2% of the nation population, the black pineapple is not black, most of Barbuda’s 1100 people share half a dozen surnames and can trace their lineage to a small group of slaves brought to the island in the late 1600s

One of the best things that the British did for the West lndies was introduce the local population to cricket. lt soon became the national passion of Antigua and is played everywhere – on beaches, in backyards or anywhere there’s some flat, open ground.