Barbuda. Still beautiful.

On our way to Barbuda we stopped at Long Island and anchored in front of Jumby Bay Resort. We were the only ones there and the anchorage comfortable. Jumby Bay Resort is pretty exclusive and though we swam ashore and walked the beach, there was no welcome mat out for us to come in for a drink or meal. (We asked.) No problem.... we had a nice enough view right where we were.

Well defined squall line over Jumby Bay

The last of the sun lights up a cloud 

As always we were looking forward to being in Barbuda, so we left Long Island behind and headed north. Being such a flat island, it doesn't look like much as you approach.

Barbuda ahead

Usually we anchor along the beach at Coco Point just west of the Coco Point Lodge, but this time we worked our way in a little farther south to a spot that's surrounded by reef and still deep enough for our shallow draft. We anchored just off a small sandy beach that rounds the corner of the shoreline before it turns up toward Spanish Point. The changing light gave us different scenery throughout the days. I took far took many shots and edited down to just these few.

Aside from the potential for hurricanes, which are forecast practically as soon as thunderstorm activity picks up off the west coast of Africa, the weather here this time of year is magnificent. The anchorages are calm and the trades are a pleasant 15 to 20 knots. And, since most sailors don't hang around the northeast Caribbean during hurricane season, we often have the anchorages to ourselves.

We had company a few times during the week we spent in Barbuda and we got to know them over drinks.

Monique & Vivienne from m/v Raw

Monique and Vivienne are from Martinique but live in St. Martin now and they zipped over to Barbuda with their husbands for a long weekend. We met them walking along the beach and later they hailed us from their boat as we dinghied past to ask if we could take them back in to the beach.

Their husbands had gone off in the dinghy in search of conch and hadn't come back to give these two a ride back to the boat from the beach, so they ditched their clothes and hats on the beach and swam back to the boat. We gave them a ride ashore to pick up their things and they had us up for a Ti Punch as a thank you. While we were there, Vivienne's husband called to say they'd run out of gas and were being helped by a local fisherman who came to their rescue. Yikes. It turns out that Monique and her husband own one of our favorite French grocery stores in St. Martin! (We told her we LOVE the cheeses they carry....)

A charter boat came for a day too and we met the captain, Bernard, and his guests, a German family with roots in Trinidad, now living in Singapore, whose daughter is in boarding school in England. Whew.

Bernard came by for a chat about the forecast

Bernard borrowed our machete after he saw Skip hacking open.... I mean, deftly slicing open... coconuts on the beach. We all got plenty of coconut water and meat and thankfully no one lost any fingers (or toes) in the process. Farmer John in Dominica would have been so proud.

We met with a fruit we wanted to eat! 

Barbuda remains one of our favorite islands no matter how often we visit. It's stunningly beautiful and serene and we just can't get enough of it. The water is crystal clear and warm, the sand is powder soft and bright white with shades of pink and the beaches go on literally for miles. Once again, the photos say it better than I can...

This conch was really here; Saralane in the distance

Me, happy.

Magnificent squall approaching

Sea stars were everywhere

Saralane in Barbuda

Full moon over Coco Point

Enjoy this post; it's the last of the lovely Caribbean water blog posts for a while. We're bound for the boat yard....