The high’s of Shirley’s Heights

We don’t know what time Phoebs got in last night, but she was looking pretty shattered in the morning! Luckily we had our normal long Sunday lie in to digest the Sunday papers. A big cooked up breakfast helped Phoebs recover a bit, we needed the fuel as we had decided to walk up to Shirley’s heights. A military complex, on top of the hill the opposite side of English harbour to Nelson’s Dockyard. It is not named after the fairer sex, but after Sir Thomas Shirley, Governor of the Leeward Islands, who strengthened Antigua’s defences in 1781!!

We took the longer more gentle route called Carpenter’s trail to the top. It was a stunning walk with dramatic views, parts were quite a scramble on all fours for me, but well worth it. At the top were the ruins of the officer’s quarters, a graveyard and then a lot of defensive buildings now converted into a restaurant. Poor things not a single person there, it’s part of the National Parks and looking a little tired, but I guess when the cruise ships dock in St John’s it heaves with people (goodness knows when that will ever restart). We had to cross the harbour in JeldiJeldi to start the trail and the only dingy dock on Galleon beach was at a hotel, so we booked in for a late lunch, to be able to tie JeldiJeldi to the dock. The beach was busy being a Sunday and we would have had to lift her so far out for her to be safe, the hotel was a much more preferable option. This is the bay we had to anchor at when we entered Antigua. It was full of boats, yachties and locals, which is always nice to see.

It was a steepish climb down but in lots of bush and trees so was wonderfully shady which we really appreciated in the mid day heat, especially Phoebs with her tender head!

Galleon beach, the start of our walk

They look like furry little animals!

Officer’s quarters and parade ground

View from the top – Galleon Beach, then English harbour and behind that Falmouth Bay

Shady route down with all the air plants

We had a lovely lunch at the hotel, and then used their sun loungers for the rest of the afternoon while we had a swim and enjoyed the beach.

Rowan and I on the floating pontoon

At sunset this dark grey glitzy smallish motor boat arrived (only small in terms of the gin palace on the opposite side of the dock). It had us transfixed as it is an American boat with three crew, a skipper and two female crew who Rowan immediately noticed were obviously employed by bust size! The owner was a single man, wearing a T shirt with ‘My Boat, My rules’ emblazoned on it. Then came the cherry on the cake, 3 little froo froo dogs, that colour coordinated with the boat, short haired small dark grey dogs, with wispy bits of white long hair. I have no idea what they are….. and the boat is called ‘The Wolf’. He strutted along the jetty, in a particularly arrogant way, we all took an immediate dislike to him. Poor chap was most probably feeling a little insecure that he was one of the smaller boats about!

Meant to be an early night but clearly it is a big day off for the crew members, we had a very noisy, very drunk S African on the dock near us, by 10pm Rowan went and had a word with him, when Rowan told him he was from Boksburg that shut him up!