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Antigua is 108 square miles in size, the land is largely rolling hills on a limestone base (from reefs that grew to cover an original volcanic outcrop on the colliding crusts of the Caribbean and Atlantic tectonic plates). As a low lying island, it is mainly open land and has little forest.

Due to its geographical position and its extraordinary natural harbours, Antigua has had strategic importance since the days of empire. In the 1700s it was a British naval base and the island simply bristled with forts and barracks. These are still visible around the coastline, and include Nelson’s Dockyard, the only restored Georgian naval repair station in the world. Inland the plantation history of the island is also clearly visible.

The island retains its strategic value (it has had an American airbase since the Second World War), but in these more peaceable times it is because Antigua is one of the main hubs for arrival into the Caribbean, from Europe at least. After many years under the Bird family and the Antigua Labour Party, Antigua and Barbuda now has a new government in the United Progressive Party, led by Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer. There has been greater attention to public works, with improvements to the hospitals, roads and assistance for pensioners, but the changes have not been greeted with universal approval. After years of paying no Income Tax (Antiguans were taxed through goods and services), it has been recently introduced, affecting around a quarter of the population.

Antigua’s past as one of the most heavily defended places on earth, with soldiers and sailors manning fortresses to ward off invading armies, is now gone. But a few things remain the same. The island is still busy and a lynchpin in the area. Antigua is still one of the heartlands of Caribbean sailing, home to the region’s most famous sailing regatta, Antigua Race Week.