Return to Base

After our lovely visit to Barbuda, we set off back to Antigua on the morning of Tuesday, March 9. We had a pleasant enough crossing and managed to catch a fish on the way. WW and Jordy were unable to pin a positive ID to it, but allowed it was "some sort of jack". I turned it into a yummy seviche almost as soon as it had been filetted.

Our delicious, very fresh seviche.

We arrived in St. John's in the afternoon and made our way into the harbour there. We dropped anchor and took the dinghy ashore to let Jordy see a bit of the town.

A St. John's street scene taken from a balcony bar.

The following morning, intending to head off to Jolly Harbour, we raised anchor. This was one of the most disgusting anchor raising to which I have ever been party. The oily, yellowish, noisesome slime from the harbour bottom coated the chain and splattered across the trampoline and deck as the windlass laboured. WW and I spent several minutes scrubbing the slime off the deck with buckets of sea water and our handy deck brush. We let the anchor stay just below the water's surface for a time as we left the area, hoping the sea water sluicing over it would clean it. No such luck. The adherent and revolting primordial ooze had to be scrubbed off. Yeccch.

I took the con for the short cruise down the coast to Jolly Harbour, with WW keeping a watchful eye on my efforts. We anchored under Mosquito Hill where we had anchored on our previous visit. WW and Jordy went off for a long kayak ride to a beach around the headland where they used the kayaks to "surf" and had a great time.

Jordy on Django in Mosquito Bay.

The next day, Jordy went for a last kayak...WW was too sore from his exertions of the day before to join him. Then we went ashore for lunch a bid a sad farewell to Jordy who was headed back to Canada. There was weather brewing over the island and WW wanted to get Django moving as we were anchored on a lee shore. Any Jack Aubrey fan will know that's a Bad Thing. So we hastened back out to our anchorage and got Boffo stored on her davits.

Weather moving over Antigua.

Aboard the echoingly empty Django, we motored out and back to English Harbour. Again, I took the con. I took her through the Pelican Channel which runs along the western bit of the south coast between rather nasty reefs. It's quite wide, so not a tricky business. We were back at our home base in plenty of time for the tot.

With no other visitors booked for the season, we had just over a month till our return to Canada. We planned to spend it cruising. We spent a couple of days in English Harbour, provisioning, getting the laundry done, hanging out. We joined the Tot Club Keep Fit on Sunday, March 14, and helped build stairs for those arriving by dinghy at Life--one of the bars at which the tot is regularly held. All sorts of people promised to send me their photos of that event, but haven't yet. I'll post 'em when I get 'em.

Exploring Barbuda, Part Two

After a very pleasant fish lunch at a restaurant in Codrington, Dilly drove us across the island to Two Foot Bay (he doesn't know why it's called that). There are some amazing caves here, including one you can climb up and through to come out on top of the Highlands. Our sandals, sadly, were not equal to the task, so we consoled ourselves with wandering about through the lower caves and enjoying the beautiful beach with its view out over the Atlantic.

WW and Jordy in the Two Foot Bay caves on Barbuda.

Dilly at the caves.

I had wanted to visit a place called the Darby Sink Hole, but Dilly said it would be a half-hour hike and time was getting on, so we were unable to visit this natural bowl containing a mini rain forest. One day.

We began the return to Django, stopping for ice and limes. The limes we picked from a tree in Dilly's sister's garden. Did I mention, the Barbudans we met were among the friendliest, most helpful and most outgoing people we've ever had the pleasure to encounter?

As we headed back to Django, Dilly turned the taxi off onto a little-used track and stopped it by an unfinished and derelict hotel complex. He led us through a bit of scrub to an amazing beach. It is pink. It is not, however, as I have read from time to time, because it has pink sand. The pink comes from thousands of tiny shells washed up by the sea. Beautiful.

The pink "sand" beach.

The pink "sand".

With that, our tour of Barbuda was ended and all that remained was to return to Django, much taken with this tiny, out-of-the-way island and its people.

Exploring Barbuda, Part One

At about 10 the next morning (Monday, March 8), we went in to shore where a charming fellow named Dilly was waiting for us with his taxi van. I was interested in Barbuda for a number of reasons.

The island was first settled by the Codringtons, who leased it from Britain in 1685 for the monstrous price of "one fat sheep". Codrington used the island to grow livestock and root crops for his sugar plantations on Antigua, and as a hunting ground. Wild pigs were introduced. The island was later abandoned to the slaves who had been imported by Codrington to work it. There was some subsistence farming as well as fishing and hunting. In the early days, donkeys were used as transport. When automobiles put in an appearance, the donkeys were allowed to run wild. As a result, the island is alive with wild pigs, the inevitable goats, wild donkeys and horses. The goats and pigs are hunted; the donkeys just hang out. The horses have owners and are carefully tended. They are not used as transport. Every second Sunday, there are horse races at a track south of the main village of Codrington. Alas, we were never there on an appropriate Sunday.

The total population of the island is about 1,500 souls. There is no individual land ownership. You fence in a bit of land, build a house and that's yours. The island is also essentially flat. The Highlands, on the Atlantic side, rise a staggering 125 feet above sea level. That's as high as it gets, folks.

In his Cruising Guide to the Leeward Islands, Chris Doyle says:

"...there have been several ambitious projects to develop the island...an idea strongly resisted by many Barbudans, who see no benefit to changing their traditional lifestyle for one of being dressed up and employed to wait on tourists, in exchange for the dubious benefits of better roads, more cars and Kentucky Fried Chicken."

The people of Barbuda halted a planned desalinisation plant, fearing that their beautiful lagoon would be destroyed. That lagoon was another reason I wanted to visit Barbuda.

View across Codrington lagoon. Yes, that's a hotel on the 25-foot wide beach.

The entire northwest of the island is a vast lagoon. I believe it is over 6 miles long and a mile or two wide. It is delimited by a narrow sand beach on the seaward side that runs 12 miles along the coast. The village of Codrington is on its landward, eastern edge. The lagoon is home to one of the largest frigate bird colonies in the world; matching those in the Galapagos. (I can't find any numbers, but we saw hundreds of birds during our visit.)

Dilly took us to a small dock in Codrington, on the lagoon, where George welcomed us aboard his skiff. We were joined by another group and he took his loaded boat into the lagoon.

George Jeffrey and Jordy as we leave for our lagoon tour.

Our first stop was a large buoy that had appeared offshore some time before. A couple of local fishermen had claimed it as salvage (they were after the tiny solar panel) and dragged it into the lagoon. There it rests, aground. Since most visitors to Barbuda are cruisers, George likes to show this example of the many dangers lurking out to sea and reminds us that a good lookout is worth all the GPS you can carry.

For a long time, no one knew where this buoy had drifted from, until an industrious American visitor used the Web and its buoy number to trace its history. It originally marked Grampus Rock, somewhere on Canada's east shore. It set off, one day, and wandered over to Spain. It probably cruised down the African coast for a bit before deciding to head for the Caribbean. It is now a permanent resident of Barbuda. Its bell rang gently as we moved off.

We then crossed the lagoon and viewed a sad little stand of mangrove. This was the original frigate bird colony, destroyed by a hurricane some years ago. Fortunately, the birds like the neighbourhood, so they just moved north a bit. Their noisy (rather smelly) nesting site was to be our last stop.

The magnificent frigate bird (to give its full name) or man-o'-war bird is so named because of its penchant for harassing other seabirds until they drop or even regurgitate the fish they have caught. I've seen them do this to terns. The frigate bird then swoops down and takes the meal. They also catch surface fish...they are not divers, nor are they swimmers. They spend literally weeks in the air and travel hundreds of miles, riding the air currents in glorious swoops and glides. At the colony, I saw them preen on the wing, ruffle and settle their feathers on the wing...activities most birds perch for. They are big birds, with a wingspan of some 2.5 metres. When they do come in for a landing, it is usually at a nesting colony such as the one on Barbuda.

A very few of the hundreds of magnificent frigate birds at the Barbuda colony.

The males have a dark red pouch at the throat which they inflate as part of the mating ritual. It was not breeding season (there were chicks about) when we were there, but there were inflated pouches...perhaps just claiming a branch or a bit of territory. The colony features all ages and stages of frigate bird. A marvel.

A frigate bird chick.

We had a fabulous ogle while George explained the steps Barbuda has taken to ensure the birds are not disturbed. He also introduced us to the "upside down jellyfish" that are found in the area.

Then we were taken back to Codrington for lunch and the remainder of our tour with Dilly.

The Next Horde

Between the departure of one horde (Dan, GG and Maia) and the arrival of the next (WW's son Jordy...a smaller horde), we had a few days to relax and regroup.

Our first order of business was to relocate ourselves in Freeman's Bay when we invited our friend and fellow Tottie to join us for dinner on Wednesday. It was to be a simple meal of ginger pumpkin soup with bakes and a salad. On Wednesday afternoon, I made the soup...only I couldn't get the burner to stay alight. This happens when there's a wind. I swear, close the galley window, and start again. No luck. Hmmmm.

"WW, do we have propane?"

"Let me check."

We told Len at the tot that his feast had become moveable and would be delayed a day. He credited us with creative ways of ditching dinner guests. I have to add that we successfully served dinner to Len on Thursday and he claimed to enjoy it.

The following day, Jordy arrived during the afternoon. He was dragged off to the tot and then we dined at Johnny Coconat's. The following morning, we provisioned and sailed off to Green Island. Overnight we experienced a brief but torrential downpour, the first in over a month.

The next morning we headed off to Barbuda, leaving Green Island via the Spithead Channel. This is a very narrow twisting serpent of water just deep enough for passage, with nasty coral heads and reefs on either side. Most of the charts for the Caribbean carry warnings that much of the information dates back to the 1700s and 1800s and may be unreliable. So I watched the charts and the nav station while WW watched the sea. I ended up standing on the bow keeping an eye out for bad things while WW yelled out our depth. It was at 2 metres we got nervous (we draw just less than a metre). Our voices became somewhat shrill at 1.8 metres. By 1.5 metres, we weren't being at all nice to each other. Finally, the depth started to increase and we brushed the sweat from our fevered brows.

We motored to Barbuda in no wind and a combination of NE and SW swells. We arrived at Gravenor Bay on the south of Barbuda, a lovely calm area protected by reefs and requiring a bit of care to enter and leave. A dolphin swam by as we prepared to anchor.

Barbudan welcoming committee.

It was rainy and cool (24C). Jordy and WW went ashore in search of George Jeffrey, local lobster fisherman and guide. A call to his home had said he was in the area.

Jordy ashore at Gravenor Bay, Barbuda.

In a somewhat surreal incident, they found two men digging post holes by the road while tending a boiling pot of lobsters. Both were wearing little more than underwear. When asked if they knew where Mr. Jeffrey might be found, one of them replied, "That's me."

As a result of this fortuitous meeting, we dined on a most succulent lobster salad and were all set for a taxi tour on the morrow.

WW gets at the meat; shells being saved for a bisque.