Paradise found: Antigua

Picture-perfect.

In some places in the world, that phrase isn't a cliché. It's an accurate description.

The beaches of Antigua, for example, are picture-perfect.

Located in the heart of the Lesser Antilles' Leeward Islands, Antigua boasts 365 beaches ("one for every day of the year," as the saying goes) -- a sandy parallel to lush Dominica, 100 miles south, which claims 365 rivers.

But while Dominica's waters act as if they're charting their own courses, twisting, turning and entwining themselves -- sometimes violently -- within dense jungle paths, Antigua's beaches, especially on the southern and western shores, lie still and serene.

Antigua's sand is the stuff of hourglasses: perfectly smooth, almost sparkly in appearance. Where the Caribbean Sea reaches ashore to lap it up, it begins to look even brighter under that perfectly clear, clean, bluish-green water, whose pallid color appears increasingly intense as your eyes follow it out to the horizon. And unlike our beaches up north whose freezing waters bite the ankles, Antigua's waters are warm. Bath-water warm.

Goes-perfectly-with-a-cool-drink warm. So-beautiful-it-really-doesn't-matter-how-warm warm. But as soon as you drive south of the airport into the island's interior, away from the multimillion-dollar resorts whose property lines divide and define the beaches, a very different landscape unfolds. Paradise and poverty become neighbors. At least that's what I discovered on my second day here, in search of Hermitage Bay, which lies due west of the village of Jennings.

They go something like this: "Down the road from St. John's near Jennings, there's a restaurant called Hometown, and you'll want to turn left down that road. Once you get to the very top of that street, it's only a right or a left turn. Take the left to the dirt road, which is a very long and winding road that's a bit bumpy, and we would be the very last stop."

A long road to paradise

The start of my trek down that long and winding road to Hermitage Bay was met with stink-eyed glares from locals socializing near a cluster of shacks lining one side of the gravel. I had to literally drive through their congregations in the middle of the road, and the stares I got seemed to be laced with resentment, as if they knew where I was headed and didn't approve.

After 15 or 20 minutes of blind navigation and several false turns, there it was: an oasis in the form of a neatly landscaped roundabout guarded by a single attendant and, behind him, a simple, elegant, open-air lobby through which shone a stretch of white sand and horizontal stripe of turquoise sea. Once in the lobby, I approached the concierge desk and asked if I might have a word with the co-owner, Andy Thesen, whose name had been passed along by a host at my lodging a few days before. I was in the market to swap hotels and wondered what the rates were for this oasis in the dust. A few minutes later, when Thesen emerged from his property's wings, he appeared just as one might expect an owner of a multimillion-dollar luxury Caribbean resort to appear: of indeterminate age, evenly tanned, casually yet elegantly dressed down to his leather flip-flops and talking with a thick British accent. After consulting briefly with a member of his staff, he humored me with a quote for a slightly discounted two nights' stay: $1,200. Per night. In U.S. dollars. It was about $150 less than the average nightly price of the least expensive of the resort's 25 private suites -- each of which, it should be noted, is outfitted with private plunge pools and top-of-the-line amenities.

Trying not to look horrified, I thanked Thesen and politely declined his offer.

The contrast of economy is startling.

Along the western and southern coasts, wealthy Americans, Britons and French sip bottomless mojitos surrounded by isolated, manmade beauty, graciously waited on by local staff members who probably live in or near the shacks that line those secluded dirt roads. Oprah has a home here, as does Robin Leach. The island is fueled by tourism and populated in spurts radiating from St. John's, which, like many Caribbean capitals, is built around a cathedral, a market and a handful of luxury malls. There are a few very good restaurants, dozens of gleaming resorts, two universities and a half-dozen intimate inns. But there isn't really a middle class.

Quest for unspoiled beaches

Most months, Antigua's hundreds of beaches are dotted with international vacationers soaking in 80-degree temperatures, lazing about under the shade of the mangrove hugging its patches of sand. There are about 69,500 residents on this 108-square-mile island, but more than anything, this is a magnet for tourists and tourism, and it's outfitted accordingly.

It's apparent from the moment one lands at the airport, whose grounds are as plushly landscaped as some of the west side resorts. So, what did this place look like before the tourism industry had its way?

English Harbour, for one, is wonderful. Especially if you're a pleasure yacht enthusiast.

Stanford Antigua Sailing Week, which this year began April 25, is the island's annual regatta, drawing vessels and their captains from all over the world to join in friendly competition. For one week, English Harbour is transformed into a continuous party, rallying behind a series of inshore and longer offshore races in competition for the Lord Nelson Trophy.

Sailing Week's ground zero is Nelson's Dockyard, named for Vice Adm. Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bront, KB (say that 10 times fast), who was stationed here with the British Fleet in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Today, Nelson's Dockyard -- and English Harbour beyond -- is a mellow tourist destination to which small groups of international travelers flock for fish and chips, rum and conversation on those picture-perfect beaches.

It was in English Harbour that I found an Antigua I might want to return to someday. A cluster of French restaurants line the streets near Nelson's Dockyard, and the best of them, Catherine's Cafe, is a water-taxi ride away across the jetty. The pace of life is more casual in the south than at the stuffy resorts along the west coast. Just west of Nelson's Dockyard over a quaint hill is Pigeon Beach, whose sand is not quite as bright as some of the others' on this island and thus appropriately less populated. To the east, the main road curves south to hug picturesque Willoughby Bay.

Just beyond it, if you make the right number of tiny turns off the main road, you'll stumble upon gorgeous Half Moon Bay, where there are no resorts -- at least none that I could see -- to spoil the intimate serenity of the waters.

On the day I visited, a small cluster of tourists quietly waded in the waters, taking in their perfect surroundings.

There weren't any waiters with trays to offer cold drinks in the shade; there weren't any bungalows with plunge pools tucked into the foothills.