Shirley Heights

I think that is how it is spelled. If it was up to us, we would rename the place T-o-u-r-i-s-t space T-r-a-p. Actually we ended up enjoying the evening there, but it was not what we expected. Shirley Heights is at the south side of the island and includes a bar and some covered areas for bands. It looks out over English Harbor. On Sunday evenings they set up a steel band and barbecue and entice tourists from all the resorts to take shuttles there to see the sunset and enjoy a local band. There were hardly any locals there, but we learned later that the soccer match between Antigua and Puerto Rico may have been the explanation. The other two couples who went with us also wanted to leave early so we made it back in time for our 8:30 dinner reservation. It was lively, just all tourists. The steel band played all kinds of music including Elvis songs ...

Here is Mike standing next to a funny sign showing someone falling off a cliff... If he had fallen, he might have landed in Eric Clapton's place.

The view was fabulous. The sunset fell right over Monserrat, the island that had to be evacuated in the 90's because of the active volcano. Now there are only about 400 scientists allowed on the island. The 70,000 or so people who lived there were sent to England.

I have approximately a million photos of the sun as it makes its way down to the horizon. At our hotel we noticed that the sun moves to the right by a noticable amount each night - about the width of the sun as it hits the horizon. Here are two of my favorites from last night...

We are extending our time here by two days so we'll be back in Austin on Thursday. (Two more sunsets!!) Occupancy is low and they cut the rates significantly and made it impossible to say no.


The moon has finally appeared after a week of being missing. Here it starts high in the sky and travels down to the horizon changing from bright white to warm orange. Really cool!