Shirley Heights - Antigua

Whew!  We made it.

April 5th - Yesterday we hiked up to Shirley Heights on the east side of English Harbor.  As the name suggests, it was way up on top this hill so we were huffing and puffing.

Entrance and outer anchorage of English Harbor

However the reward was absolutely stunning views.

If you look closely, you can see the island of Guadeloupe over Tom's left shoulder

The British navy used Shirley Heights as one of many high places where they could keep an eye on those pesky French over on Guadeloupe.  

Can you see the U shaped water that is the inner most part of English Harbor?

The view west is English Harbor directly below and then Falmouth Harbor in the far distance.
It looks like there are two small bodies of water in between English and Falmouth  that sort of form a U shape.  But in fact, English Harbor winds way back up in there, nearly to Falmouth Harbor and that is the U shaped you see.  Although the two are not connected, it's a quick 5-10 minute walk from Falmouth Harbor to English Harbor.

The narrow entrance to English Harbor between the greenery

I overheard one of the tourist guides tell her pasty white, elderly tour group that the British had forts on both sides of the narrow (100 foot wide at the time) entrance to English Harbor.  They used to stretched chain across from one fort to the other.  If it was an English navy ship, they lowered the chain down into the water and let them pass.  If it wasn't, they kept the chain up and thus the ship out.  Even today, guidebooks show the approximate placement of hurricane chains laying on the bottom of English Harbor, leftover from the old days when the British navy was here.