Devil's Bridge

Devil's Bridge is a natural limestone arch on the Atlantic coast of eastern Antigua, created over centuries as the sea cut a horizontal passage through the soft rock of the Antigua formation. The bridge spans a channel that links a shallow tidal pool on the landward side directly to the open ocean beyond, and on a rough day the difference between the two bodies of water is dramatic.

The sea here is the raw Atlantic, not the sheltered Caribbean — grey-green, powerful and arriving in long unbroken swells from Europe. There is no land between this coast and Portugal, and the ocean arrives with full force, particularly during the winter months when the Atlantic low-pressure systems drive heavy swells through the deep water that surrounds the island.

The Devil's Bridge National Park encompasses the limestone platform that surrounds the arch, and the landscape is stark and windswept. Low scrub and cactus grow in the pockets of soil caught in the limestone, but the dominant impression is of bare rock, salt spray and the constant sound of surf. The blowholes — fissures in the limestone that jet sea water skyward when a wave compresses air in a cavity — turn the platform into a percussion instrument.

The water can reach considerable height during rough weather, and the combined sound of the surf and the chuff of the blowholes is constant and powerful. Devil's Bridge is one of those places where the sheer physical energy of the ocean is undeniable: no vegetation softens the scene, no commentary is needed, and the sea wins.

The sea here is not the turquoise shallows of the Caribbean lee side; it is the cold Atlantic, grey-green and rolling, with no land between here and Europe. Swimming is possible in the shallow pools near the blowholes but dangerous elsewhere due to the powerful surge. The surrounding area near Indian Town Point has been developed as a national park with a small car park and informational signage, but the site itself is entirely natural.

Despite the starkness of the limestone platform, the area around Devil's Bridge supports a small but distinctive flora adapted to salt spray and thin soils. Sea grape, low-growing acacia and several species of cactus cling to the crevices in the limestone, their compact forms a response to the constant wind. The birdlife is limited compared to the wooded areas of inland Antigua, but noddy terns and brown pelicans are commonly seen hunting the tidal pools, and the cliff faces provide nesting sites for Audubon's shearwaters at night.

The Atlantic coast here is radically different from the leeward Caribbean shore that most visitors associate with Antigua, and the contrast can be startling: where the Caribbean side is sheltered and turquoise, the Devil's Bridge coast is grey-green, powerful and relentless. This dual personality of the island — the calm Caribbean and the wild Atlantic — is compressed into a landmass of just 108 square miles, and Devil's Bridge is the most vivid expression of the Atlantic character.

One of the most dramatic natural landscapes in the Eastern Caribbean: a natural arch carved by the Atlantic over millennia.

Active blowholes create a powerful, noisy performance that varies daily with swell conditions.

The raw Atlantic coast is unlike the sheltered Caribbean beaches and offers a completely different dimension of the island.