Thursday 8th  December   ……   Antigua 17.01.245N 61 46.582W

Today’s blog by David

We anchored on the west of the island, Bob having conned us in through the reefs,  perched up on the first spreaders, off a deserted, 10 kilometre long beach; Lighthouse Bay. We had had a good sail with a fair breeze but arrived later in the day so stayed aboard for dinner.

On Saturday, it rained…..and rained, and rained.  This produced a spectacular conjunction of colours:

But – it did rain.   Sunday, was a better day and we chanced it ashore.

The capital of Barbuda is Codrington but that lay about 1^1/2 miles away over a 100 yard wide spit of land over which we had to carry our dinghy and then the remainder over an inland lake. We were never going to carry the RIB over that spit between us and so we pumped up an old flubber dinghy for the journey.

Codrington was an eclectic mix of houses from the era of occupation by the slave traders (under Admiral Codrington – who used the island as a marshalling yard  for slaves before onward transport in the Caribbean) and the more recent breeze block constructions ubiquitous in the region.  There are only 11,000 people n Barbuda and this, the biggest, town was small – it was Sunday, so everyone was in church and SINGING LOUDLY!. It seems incongruous that these were Advent hymns, and that Christmas is so near.  

We hired a cab for a quick tour of the island, climbed to the highest point on the island (120ft) and surveyed the view then back to the boat for food (having decided against  the restaurant at the exclusive Lighthouse Bay resort who were prepared to feed us ; US$ 55 for a burger and fries!).

The rains prevailed overnight and we motored back to Antigua on Monday.

Wednesday was a day of fond Au Revoirs as David and Simone saw Bob and Linda off at the airport and returned to the boat to await the onslaught!