Back to Baruda

We loved Barbuda. Loved it. The weather was in our favor so we went back and spent a week there. This time we were able to explore inland a bit too. We weren't the only boat taking advantage of the good conditions and as often happens... where there are several boats, there are cocktails on the beach at sunset.

Seven boats worth of sailors on Coca Beach

The neighborhood changed as we stayed on and other boats came and went. One afternoon a young couple on a French boat came around in their dinghy and invited everyone to come to the beach that evening to celebrate their daughter Philipine's 5th birthday. Little Philipine was worried that she wouldn't have anyone at her birthday party, but everyone in the anchorage came. Philipine ended up with three cakes, cupcakes, crepes with nutella and enough other sweets to send her into a sugar coma.

Philipine strikes a pose in her mama's sunglasses

The birthday girl serves up cake... with jelly bean topping! 

That's Philipine's pere, Boris, holding the bottle of dangerous rum from Martinique

Coco Beach, Barbuda... not a bad spot for a kid's birthday party

To show us around inland we connected with John 'Taxi' who was Barbuda born and raised. He was a gentle, soft spoken guy and knew just about everything there was to know about the island. We went with Dave and Lori on Persephone who we'd met earlier in the week. We went to caves in the highlands, where drawings on the wall gave evidence of the Arawaks presence on the island.

Two feet bay... so named because the only way to get there is by using your own two feet.

John drove us to a dock on the lagoon where we met up with Aldwin (one of his nine kids) who took us farther into the lagoon to see the frigate bird colony. We were a little late in the season to see the male frigates showing off to attract the females by ballooning out their chests in bright red, but we did see lots of big fuzzy chicks and thousands of frigate birds. They're BIG, with a wing span exceeding six feet. Despit my lack of skills with fast moving wildlife, I was able to get a few shots of these big birds

Aldwin speeds us out to see the frigate birds

Dave and Lori in the front row

Our timing was off and we didn't catch the bi-monthly horse races held near the island's only town, Codrington. We did see the most recent winner getting some TLC from his owner though. Flute (the horse) was getting a post training bath in the lagoon and we wished them both luck in the next race.

Flute gets a bath

Even winners have to walk home... no spoiling this champ with a horse trailer. 

Horses and donkeys roam freely on the island. Some return to their homes from time to time and others consider the whole island their home. These two were grazing by the bank.

One source of income for Barbudans is from the sale of their sand to other islands. They mine sand from different spots in the interior. They have fresh water springs on the island and at one point they accidentally broke through the water table and opened up this fresh water pool on the south end inadvertently creating a nice oasis for any wandering beasts.

Watering hole created by sand mining operations 

After spending most of the week at Coco Point, we sailed around to the south side and anchored in the lee of Spanish Point. The wind was still howling and the windward side of the island was wild with waves crashing on the reefs that are close to the shore. We spent hours walking the windward beaches and winding our way around the scrubby part of the island.

Windward side

Beach art

Everything from lightbulbs (unbroken) to tractor trailers (very broken) washes up on the windward side.

We wandered through the scrub and low trees and came across an strange assortment of shacks built from cast off materials. Each little shack had it's own improvised water collection system and were impressive in their creative use of odds and ends. 

Saralane comfy in the lee of Spanish Point. The big breakers were just on the other side of the point.

We wanted to stay longer but the weather wasn't going to get any better for sailing back to Antigua, plus we wanted to catch up with our friends Bob and Janice on Tsamaya who were in Antigua preparing for an Atlantic crossing.

We'll be back again Barbuda....