Cabrits National Park Dominica (Part 2)

Fort Shirley

Back closer to sea level we spent some time wandering around the main body of Fort Shirley. The grounds here are well-tended and the buildings have been beautifully restored but none were open to visitors when we were there. Fort Shirley was built by slave labour, primarily using local stone, timber and lime mortar produced from coral collected from nearby reefs. However, some of the buildings incorporated red clay bricks brought from England as ships’ ballasting.

Fort Shirley Lower Battery

Lower Battery

The Lower and Upper Batteries of Fort Shirley were sited to guard Prince Rupert’s Bay and dock, though quite where the dock had been situated was not clear to us.

Whilst some of the officers did live in the Officers’ Quarters, many did not as the main garrison, close to the swamp, was considered (and probably was) quite an unhealthy place to live. Instead, they lived with their families higher on the slopes of West Cabrit or even, apparently, as far away as Roseau.

Fort Shirley never actually saw any action though the garrison witnessed the Battle of the Saintes and the fort was the scene of the revolt of the 8^thWest India Regiment in 1802. In 1805 an attack on Dominica was mounted by Napoleonic forces and Roseau fell to the enemy. The British Governor, George Prevost, escaped to Fort Shirley where he readied the troops and refused to surrender. The French commander, General la Grange was sufficiently deterred by the stronghold, left the island and sailed north with his squadron, presumably to Guadeloupe and, ultimately, Napoleon’s displeasure.

Upper Battery & Signal Station

The Upper Battery, as well as providing a gun emplacement, also housed a flagstaff and signal station that was part of a chain of signal stations running the length of the west coast of Dominica. Messages could be passed rapidly up and down the chain assuming, of course, that the visibility was good enough!

Land crab massacre

Western high battery

From Fort Shirley we took the path up to the western high battery on West Cabrit. As on the path up East Cabrit, along the way we found lots of broken land crab shells. Clearly some of the local birds find land crabs a tasty meal and perhaps easier to catch with there being less foliage after the hurricanes.

It’s a grove snake in the upper picture, honest! Damn autofocus

We also spotted a rather large, black Grove Snake, which was a bit of a shock. But I think we shocked it more than it shocked us as it slithered away too quickly for me to get a better picture of it.

Cruise ship dock

Having climbed both high points we realised that time was pressing on and that we needed to return to BV in good time to shower etc before attending the well-reknown PAYS weekly barbecue. But there was just time for me to snap some pictures of the cruise ship dock (small cruise ships!) which, like so much else on the island, took a real pasting from Hurricane Maria. Hopefully, the Government (or perhaps one or more of the cruise ship companies) will soon be able to fund a rebuild of the dock so that more much-needed tourist dollars can return to the island.

The green flash at sunset

Back aboard BV we had time to watch the sunset before heading out for the barbecue and this time, with a beautifully clear horizon, we did get to see (and capture) the green flash.

PAYS infamous barbeque

The PAYS barbecue was as good as its billing with more food than we could eat and, as Peter from Ellenhad warned, a deadly and apparently unlimited supply of rum punch. Tempting as it was to stay and talk/party into the early hours, we had planned to spend the next day, our last on Dominica, on a road trip around some more of the island’s sites with Mike and Cate (Kealoha V) so an early(ish) night was called for in preparation for a prompt start the next day.

Cabrits National Park, Dominica