Intimate Caribbean

Cocos is all-inclusive, with rates beginning at $125 per person in the summer and $165 in winter. A lunch of fresh fish in a divine white sauce is the first of a series of excellent meals during my stay.

The waiter who delivers my lunch shows up again to take my order for dinner, and by then we're on a first-name basis. At lunch that first day, I exchange pleasantries with a British woman at the next table who is traveling with her college-age daughter. When my daughter and I end up seated near them at dinner, we chat about our days. That kind of passing intimacy will be repeated at the other two hotels I stay in, Siboney Beach Club and the Admiral's Inn.

Our first night at Cocos, we dine by candlelight on the open decks overlooking the water. Curtains that move with the breeze are tied against the pillars that support the peaked roofs of the decks, creating a romantic and serene atmosphere. The owner circulates among the tables, greeting guests. At my invitation, he joins me for a glass of wine and a chat.

His staff, he says, is hired from the nearby village. He buys ingredients and other supplies from the village, and rather than providing water sports and other activities, he encourages the locals to come onto his property and offer the services. Such outreach, I have to assume, is more common among local owners than among corporate entities based far away.

Loaded With History

A sense of place and individuality are also hallmarks of overnight stays at two other properties in Antigua.

If someone ever has a contest on unique historic settings for Caribbean hotels, the Admiral's Inn will certainly take a prize. The very British inn sits along English Harbour in Nelson's Dockyard, now a national park but once the British naval fleet's strategic port, repair center and safe harbor from hurricanes.

The inn is built from bricks made in England and used as ballast for ships that sailed to Antigua and then returned home full of rum casks. Walk into the first floor of what was once a storehouse for pitch and tar, and you're transported to an English pub.

I mosey up to the bar for a draft and find a British couple who has come specifically to see the dockyard. They point out that the graffiti carved into the bar's countertop -- HMS Bullfrog and other ship names -- was done by 17th- and 18th-century sailors.

I take my brew to the stone patio overlooking English Harbour, which is sheltered by mountains and cliffs on top of which sit British fortresses that once protected the narrow inlet from pirates and from other European powers.

A stroll on the grounds is a march into history. All the buildings that once made up this center of power for the British navy have been preserved. Clarence House was a residence built for the future King William IV while he served under Horatio Nelson as captain of the HMS Pegasus. The gatekeeper's house still has a sign warning, "No foreigners, strangers or women to be admitted." The admiral's house is now a museum.

Hotel workers will drive you to a beach or provide a water taxi to the closest one just across the harbor. I let them know I'd like the water taxi and am told that the driver will be back in 10 minutes -- he had to take his wife somewhere.

Ten minutes later, I'm treated to a lovely little ride through English Harbour. Okay, so the beach where the driver drops me, with a promise to return in one hour, isn't very good. Next time I'll drive to a better beach. I figure that's a compromise worth making for the price. (Rates for a double room are $145 to $180. In summer, it's $95 to $120, and the fifth night is free.)