After sailing through the night at a leisurely pace from St. Thomas, our cruise ship majestically glided into the harbour of the capital city of the island of Antigua, the city of St. John -- not to be confused with the island we just visited in the U. S. Virgin Islands yesterday.
Antigua is renowned as the island of 365 beaches, and boasts a beautifully varied landscape of high hills and scalloped bays alternating with farm fields and rocky cliffs. It looked particularly enticing and beautiful as we sailed in early on Saturday morning.
First lesson: the "u" in the name is not sounded. It's pronounced "An-TEE-gah."
For me, the fascination in Antigua was a chance to visit the historic sites surrounding the former Royal Navy Dockyard at the southern end of the island. That entailed a 3.5 hour bus tour from the cruise port in the northwest to the dockyard in English Bay, in the southeast part of the island.
It was not by chance that Antigua developed into one of the biggest British bases in the Caribbean. In the age of the sailing ship navy, ships from the United Kingdom sailed south along the coasts of Europe until they picked up the northeasterly winds known as the "trade winds." That convenient stream of air then pushed them clear across the ocean towards the northeastern corner of the Leeward Islands, and voila! Antigua was located exactly in the region where most ships made their first landfall after the ocean crossing.
Through the years, the Antigua Dockyard was available to repair ships which had suffered damage during the long voyage from the British Isles, and to put them back into fighting trim. This safe harbour played a critical role in the struggles against piracy, in the long wars against France and Spain, and in the campaign to suppress the slave trade. It continued to form a significant link in the Royal Navy's strategic planning until the coming of steamships freed naval vessels from their ancient dependence on the trade winds. The Dockyard was finally abandoned in 1889.
Precisely because of the strategic importance of the harbour and Dockyard at English Bay, the entire island was ringed by close to two dozen forts armed with heavy, long-range cannon. The tour we took first brought us up to a height of land east of English Bay, where we saw the remains of a sizable military establishment erected by the British Army to protect the vital Dockyard. I can't verify this information, but I suspect that it might also have been created and defended by HM Royal Marines, the elite body of naval troops which inspired the creation of the United States Marine Corps.
Right from the first look, it's easy to see how these high-elevation forts could command the waterways with their artillery, without themselves being vulnerable to return cannon fire from ships.
Substantial remains of older buildings can be seen at what is now known as Blockhouse Hill.
From Blockhouse, we drove to nearby Shirley Heights (named after a colonial governor of the Leeward Islands), where you get a splendid view over the south coast of Antigua, and especially over English Bay and the Dockyard.
The orange loop circles the actual Dockyard area, so that you can see the carefully chosen site, equally protected from foul weather and enemy attack.
If you turn 90 degrees to the left from that view, you get to see this one: the volcanic peaks of the neighbouring island of Montserrat, where the Soufrière Hills volcano has been blowing its stack on an ongoing basis since 1995.
Three of those eruptions have been severe enough to blast large quantities of volcanic ash onto Antigua, and the capital of Montserrat (Plymouth) and its original airport have both been wiped out by the volcano. The entire southern half of Montserrat is uninhabitable, due to the frequent pyroclastic flows, and many of the inhabitants have long since departed to Antigua or even to the U.K. -- although several thousand have now returned.
Montserrat is not the only volcanic island in the region. A number of islands in the Caribbean have a volcanic history, due to the island chain's location along the boundary between two continental plates. Currently active or dormant (potentially active) volcanoes exist on Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Vincent, to name only the most famous.
From Shirley Heights, we then drove down to the actual Dockyard, and there we encountered the usual Curse of the Guided Tour: we got just 20 minutes of free time to explore after the planned and guided tour of the Dockyard was finished. And that tour, quite frankly, was a disappointment. The guide seemed to know very little about anything except Admiral Lord Nelson -- who, in fact, only spent 3 years here at English Bay, several years before his death at the Battle of Trafalgar rocketed him to everlasting fame.
Here, then, a quick little photo tour of the Dockyard as it exists today. The historic buildings here have been painstakingly restored through the years since the work began in 1951, and a fair amount of the work has been voluntary. I could easily have spent at least 2 more hours poking around this unique spot. First, a view of the Dockyard Gate, actually shown from the inside.
This wooden house has been known informally for years as "Admiral Nelson's House," but was actually not built until almost half a century after his death. It served as a residence for naval officers whose ships were being repaired. Today it's the Dockyard Museum.
Near the museum stands a beautifully erect Royal Palm, the species which always looks suspiciously like a concrete column because it's so straight. This particular specimen was planted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II during an official visit in 1966.
The long building behind the palm tree was originally a storage facility for lumber and copper sheeting used to repair ships. It's now a unique and upmarket hotel. Here are a few more assorted buildings around and about the Dockyard.
The last one, as the sign clearly indicates, is yet another hotel.
This site was one of the most important buildings in the Dockyard in the days of sailing ships.
The three large capstans inside the Careenage (the foundations of the building are still visible) were used in ship repairs. Heavy-duty rope cables were led from each capstan to one of the three mastheads of a two- or three-decked battleship. The capstans were then wound up and the cables pulled the ship over at a sharp angle of 45 degrees or so. It was then possible for the naval carpenters to inspect the ship's bottom, clean off the numerous barnacles, do any necessary repairs to the planking (such as replacing pieces damaged by the teredo or shipworm), and apply fresh copper sheeting to the bottom to protect it. The ship would then be released to its upright position and turned around to face in the opposite direction so the process of hauling it over at an angle ("careening" the ship) could be repeated on the other side.
And just what power moved those capstans? The sailors -- sheer, brute manpower pushing on the bars that stick out all around the capstan head. Weren't the "good old days" wonderful? If the sailors didn't push hard enough, the boatswain's mate was always ready to apply his "starter" -- a length of rope studded with knots at regular intervals. I'll leave it up to you to imagine the part of a sailor's anatomy to which the starter would be applied. (The correct nautical term would be the "stern.")
Just imagining all that brute physical labour is enough to make anyone thirsty. Fortunately, the hotel stands ready to meet the need, and our tour included a free coupon for everyone. All that was then required was a nice shady table outside the hotel at which to enjoy the rum punch.
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