English Harbour

English Harbour is the Georgian navy's last port still open for business: the dockyard the Royal Navy built from 1725 in a hurricane-proof inlet on Antigua's south coast — where a young Horatio Nelson served three unhappy years in the 1780s — has kept its stone pillars, its sail loft, its officers' quarters and its purpose, because the yachts of the Caribbean winter now tie up where the frigates did. UNESCO listed it in 2016; the sailors had listed it long before. Above it, on the ridge, Shirley Heights keeps the view that made the harbour worth defending.

The traveller walks the dockyard in the morning light, when the pillars of the old boat house stand in the water like a ruined temple and the museum tells the story of a fleet; hikes or drives to Shirley Heights for the sweep of both harbours below; goes on a Sunday, when the steel band plays the sunset down and the whole island seems to arrive for rum punch and barbecue; swims at Galleon Beach or Pigeon Point; and, if it comes at the end of April, watches Sailing Week fill Falmouth Harbour with the fastest boats in the Caribbean.

The Guide's practical counsel: the dockyard charges a small entry that also opens Shirley Heights and the interpretation centre — keep the ticket —; the Sunday party is genuinely the island's, not a show, and it fills, so arrive before four; the taxi from St. John's or the airport is the usual way, and drivers know the Heights road better than any map; the sea on this coast is calm inside the harbours and lively outside; and Antigua's claim of a beach for every day of the year is only a slight exaggeration — the south coast alone will keep you a week.