Land of the Mega Yachts – Barbuda Island, Antigua, January 5, 2024

We have a great time in the states and the reset was definitely needed.  We were happy to be back and spent the first couple of days back watching fireworks and doing more work on the boat while we were still in Jolly Harbor Marina.  We were able to get our friend Disco back to help with out wind sensor and he went up the mast again.  Now we had our depth replaced, wind sensor fixed, and reprovisioned a nice hunk of Red Stripe to last us another little while.  It was time to move on again. 

Since we were in no hurry to head north and had a nice spell of very, very unusually calm weather, we decided to head over to Barbuda.  It was roughly 30 miles directly east and due to this fact, very few people ever see this island.  It will be a first time for us.  I understand now why it is so desirable.  It was stunningly beautiful!  The beaches were miles long, the water was blue and clear, and it was to closest we have had to the beauty of the Bahamas since the Exumas.

We spent a couple of days snorkeling which was nice but not the best.  We couldn’t help but notice how many mega yachts there are here.  Somewhere in the range of 5 at all times.  I have to assume it is mostly based on the proximity to St. Barts (the richest island in the Caribbean).  But hey, we have never had any issues hanging out with the rich before and it was very safe.

After a nice lazy couple of days, we had made a new plan to check out hear and head to St. Barts.  This required us to head to shore and visit the customs office which was located in Codrington (the only settlement on the island).  We moved north about an hour and started to take the dinghy in. 

Now Ron and I have done some stupid things on our sails but this one tops the charts.  We knew how hard hit Barbuda was from Hurricane Irma in 2017 and that there had been a cut created in the lagoon where we could get the dingy to shore and dock.  What we didn’t know is there are breaking waves across this little break and how treacherous it was to cross here to get into this lagoon which was only 3 feet deep and the largest bird sanctuary in the world.   We chickened out the first time and this was only after $200EC literally blew out of Ron’s pocket.  Well great hope customs doesn’t charge us to get out!  When we saw another boat go and give it a try, we hoped in our dinghy to try and follow them.  They ended us chickening out but we decided to give it a go and made it!  Sure hope we can make it back out!

We walked around Codrington a little but honestly, there wasn’t must there and it was obvious what a total loss had happened in 2017.  We successfully found the customs office and checked out.  Now it was time to try and get back through the cut…uh oh.

The good news the trip home was uneventful and not nearly as bad as our ride to get into the dock. We were right on schedule to leave in the morning for St. Bart’s. We had a 3:00am departure and due to the unusually calm weather we had, were avoided all the shallow coral of Barbuda and were able to have a very nice downwind sail which were not used to having after beating into the wind all of last year to get to Grenada. It was going so well that we had changed our plans pretty early in the sail to keep going all the way to St. Martin. We strolled in just before sunset and just before it started to rain, picked up our mooring in Marigot Bay. It seems as if we were back in civilization here and we were a bit excited with all the good restaurants. The weather is going to keep us here for about the next week so we will settle in and enjoy!