Fort with a View

When people marvel at how green Washington State is, I'd have to remind them that "its because it rains all the time." Dominica is much the same. The mountain peaks were constantly shrouded with sullen rain clouds, ready to rush downslope at a minute's notice to drench cruisers and townspeople alike. After a while, you accept the fact that at any minute it could start raining, sometimes torrentially, and then you go about your normal, albeit somewhat wet, life.

One such rainy day we choose to visit Fort Shirley, located on a ridge overlooking Prince Rupert Bay where our boat was anchored. The fort is in Cabrits National Park, which includes a large marine park and wetlands (source of tenacious mosquitos that eventually got the capital of Dominica moved from Portsmouth to Roseau years ago). The park now has a large cruise ship dock, and in season is inundated by thousands of rampaging tourists straight off the boat.

The original stone road up to Fort Shirley.

We visited late in the day and virtually had the park to ourselves. For some reason we didn't expect much, we just wanted to get off the boat on a rainy day, but we were very pleasantly surprised. We walked up a long stone road, through the fort's main gates, and around the corner to a beautiful view of the fort with an expanse of green lawn sweeping down the hill. The purpose of the fort and it's long cannons was to protect the British ships anchored in Prince Rupert bay from the marauding French, Spanish, and various privateers. At its peak over 600 men were garrisoned at the fort.

Drawing depicting what Fort Shirley looked like in the early days.

The fort has a unique historical presence for on April 9, 1802, a mutiny of the all black 8th West India Regiment broke out at the fort. As a result of this mutiny, over 10,000 slave soldiers in the British Army were freed. It was the first act of mass emancipation in the British Empire.

We wandered around the various stone buildings, some of which were renovated in 2006 and now used for weddings, receptions and concerts. The view from the Officer's Headquarters and the gun emplacements was beautiful, encompassing the breadth of Prince Rupert Bay. There was also a lot of tropical flora on the site, including teak trees and a huge Silk Cotton Tree with branches at 90° angles.

Silk Cotton tree.

Aware of the lateness of the day, we walked down the stone road to a pathway climbing up an adjacent ridge housing the Captain's House and gun emplacements at the top. The Captains' House was a real treat; a once proud mansion nestled in an overgrown jungle setting now on verge of collapse. If they ever film Conrad's Heart of Darkness, this would make a good location.

The trail climbed up at a very gentle grade (remember they had to haul those large cannons up to the top using mules or horse trains. As it got darker and darker it got spookier and spookier. Every once in a while a lizard would startle us as it scooted through the dry leaves causing quite a racket.

Some of the cannons they towed via horse carriage up to the overlook of the bay.

Flying Cloud is in the bottom right corner.

At the top the ridge flattened out and we were treated to an expansive view of Port Rupert Bay and the town of Portsmouth. With darkness rapidly approaching we hurried down the trail hoping they hadn't locked the pier where we tied our boat. Luckily the night watchman was there cooking his dinner on a small gas stove and smiled at us as we walked by.