My mother lives on the island. Once we got back to my mother’s house the kids were amazed to see the house looked so comfortable after all they had heard about learning resourcefulness through having to “make do” from relatives who grew up there. From their surprise, I guess they expected to see a coal pot, candles, and an outdoor toilet.

Grandma kept to her promise of taking the kids to the beach on the first day.

In fact within hours of touching down at the airport we were enjoying the warm Caribbean Sea. The kids ran back and forth through the water while their grandma floated in the knee high water

Even in the early evening, the water is warm and inviting.

After taking a quick dip myself, and assured all was in Grandma’s capable hands, I watched intermittently from the beach. After carrying all the kid’s bags and my bags through immigration and customs, I can’t be sure that I didn’t doze off, but I do know that I was hard at work doing my part to hold down the sand to the beach.

A little ways down the beach from where I lay, a couple of men were fishing. Now there are few pastimes I enjoy as much as surf fishing, although admittedly I’ve always caught many more fish on deep sea fishing charters, which I love as well. Eventually my fascination with the fishing got the better of me and I wandered down to ask the same question that one asks of fishermen everywhere, even where there are clearly no fish, “catch anything yet”?

He said that he hadn’t yet, but that he certainly would before he left. I marveled at how clean the water was. There was none of the odor associated with the red tide I had encountered in Florida, and that some people had told me was related to water pollution. I commented on how I could not remember ever visiting a North American city near water that hadn’t killed off most of the fish species there from pollution.

With hotels being such an important business on the island I was amazed that 30 years after I last visited the island that the water was still so clean. The man I spoke to was not only a skilled fisherman who knew the local catch well, but one who also kept track of the ecology. He told me that strict regulations promoted very green practices by the hotels with regards to the quality of the water near the beaches, but that the water near the harbor (where there are no beaches) is less clean.

Eventually the subject changed and we found out that he too used to visit the rum shop. He and his buddies would sneak in to play pool, but my Grandpa would run them off because they were too young. It turns out that the rum shop was a little bit famous.

Antigua’s waters stay clean by decree.