Shirley’s Heights is a washout

The boat Thula, that did the Arc with us, with the South African wife from Rowan’s hometown, is in a marina in Jolly harbour further around the island. We had arranged to spend the day with them, planned to do the walk up to Shirley’s heights – named after an english admiral from the fort at the top of the hill. It is a top attraction on the island to spend Sunday afternoon up there as they have a steel band playing from 4:30, followed by reggae after 7pm, with food and a bar provided.

We also have reconnected with Jan and Greg who we spent some time with in our first year in Martinique, in 2020. Famous in our family as they taught us to play the dice game Farkle. They arrived into Galleon bay this morning with their daughter Miranda who flew in from the UK yesterday. They joined us at the beach for our hot climb up to Shirley’s heights. Along the way we planned to watch the end of the SuperYachts 5 day racing challenge. We got to the first part of the old fort ruins about a quarter of the way up and found race officials manning the look out. There were some enormous sails out, some had 3 or 4 sails up, which was impressive. We then ventured further along the dramatic cliffs and had not gone far before the heavens opened. We got soaked though. We persevered all the way to the top in pouring rain and of course it stopped once we got there. We were way too early, but the men persuaded some kitchen staff to sell us some beers and we settled at a prime table. Luckily we had brought a couple of kikoys along, Jan and I managed to hang our clothes up to dry. We whiled away a bit of time catching up with everyone, but we were hit by another down pour with ominous black clouds behind it. By 3:30 we were hungry and decided to give up, it did not look like the weather was going to improve.

The SuperYacht challenge

Dinghies just popping their heads out the harbour with a SuperYacht way behind them

Race officials

Heading off on our walk in the sun

Dramatic cliff walk

Rain arrives

Rowan and Jody

Onwards and upwards in the rain

The Super Yachts racing in the dark skies

A great view of English harbour before another down pour

Not much view in the rain

Sun coming out, with Jan, Miranda and Greg

Very soggy

Greg, Miranda and Jody from Thula

The winning boats crossing the line

We headed back down into Falmouth harbour, and found Bar-B’s, part of the club house, the only place serving food, luckily sneaking in just before the kitchen shut. Pleased to be under shelter as the rain kept coming and going all the way through our jolly meal. Everyone is commenting on the weird weather. It didn’t dampen our spirits too much, it was a fun day catching up even with the weather not cooperating. We collapsed back onto Pole Pole to catch up on our Sunday paper.