One of the prettiest spots on Antigua, Half Moon Bay has a half-mile semicircle of white-sand beach partially enclosing a deep-blue bay, where the Atlantic surf normally offers top-class body-surfing opportunities. Since the closure in 1995 of the hurricane-damaged hotel at the southern end, the beach is often pretty empty.

Harmoney Hall and Green Island
Tucked away on the east coast overlooking Nonsuch Bay, the restored plantation house at Harmony Hall (closed May to Oct) is now home to a tiny, chic hotel and one of the island's best restaurants, as well as a free art gallery that showcases monthly exhibitions of local and Caribbean art from November to April.

From the jetty, boats regularly make the five-minute run out to deserted Green Island , where the beaches are powdery and the snorkelling excellent. If you're not a guest, there's a small charge for the boat service - ask at the bar of the hotel.

Island Arts Gallery
There are few points of interest worth stopping for on the northeast coast, but Nick Maley's Island Arts Gallery in Hodges Bay (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm) is certainly one of them.

Maley, originally a film make-up artist for movies like Star Wars and Krull, is a British painter who has worked on Antigua for over a decade and shown his striking and original works at exhibitions across the Caribbean and North America. Maley's small gallery and studio - resounding with the squawks of the parrots he and his wife breed in their lush garden - are crammed with his paintings and prints, as well as those of Antiguan, Haitian and other West Indian artists. There is plenty of exuberant colour and some captivating local portraits beside the more predictable landscapes and seascapes. The gallery is signposted up a side street, off the main road that skirts the northeast coast. If you want to meet Maley, call ahead on 268/461-6324 as he's sometimes at his Heritage Quay store in St John's.

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