Barbuda-some say “Heaven on Earth”

Our Wing-on-wing day.

Barbuda is an island of 62 square miles, population, 1500, 7 mile interior lagoon and I think 2 miles at the widest. Our sail took about 6 hours but was rewarded with a beautiful anchor along 11 mile beach running parallel   to Codrington Lagoon.  Tonight was almost the full moon and we enjoyed another meal in the cockpit.  We had only 8 boat neighbors in the bay, but in 11 miles it felt as if we were alone.  We made contact with George Jeffery, a local tour guide and fisherman who had been listed in our Doyle book.  Tomorrow we would have a small tour of the island and a boat tour to the bird sanctuary.

Sunday we met George Jeffery on the beach, and after a 2 minute walk across the land to the lagoon, we took his fast boat over to the city dock where we paid for our passage into the bird sanctuary.  Our taxi driver arranged by George took us on a short tour of the East Coast of the island to sea caves, adding a bit of hurricane history and on our way back to the dock we asked if he would stop so
we could buy beer and ice for the boat.

The Eastern side of the island is the Highlands, filled with caves

He agreed and our stops included 2 private residences where one had a freezer in their back yard bigger than our boat filled with ice bags.   The beer was purchased at another home where we placed our needs and a man would disappear into the house and return with a plastic bag with our cans of beer and coke.  Price negotiated and beer on ice in George Jeffery’s personal cooler bag.

Next part of our tour was the boat tour of the Bird Sanctuary.   Truly an amazing and interesting sight with the Frigate bird in their mangrove bushes.   Frigate birds are called masters of the air.  They have the greatest wing span in proportion to their weight of any bird.  Because of this they are very awkward and cannot take off if they become submerged.  For this reason they avoid landing in the water and scoop their food from the surface of the sea.   They come back to the same trees and have specific boundaries where they nest.   The male during mating season puff up huge red pouches under their throats.

These are actually jellyfish, laying upside down in the shallows near the Bird Sanctuary.

Ending our day, George Jeffery helped us buy 2 lobsters from local fisherman just returning with a full lobster trap.   To keep the mess to a minimum, we decided to just cook the tails (Wendell did the de-tail work).    After a quiet afternoon, we had our lobster  dinner with some mushroom risotto and salad.  Perfect.

George Jeffery at the Lagoon dock.  Thank you for a great day and the use of your cooler!

Wendell had to hand carry the lobster across to the Sea side

Wendell, doing the “deed”!  Messy!

Monday, we set the dinghy on deck for our 8 hour trip to St. Barts.  It was a beautiful sailing day, complete with full main and AP Spinnaker.  Not bad for only 4 crew!   Shelly made us her  chicken quesadillas  for lunch .  This was one thing I learned from Shelly when I sailed with she and Wendell, however, I don’t think I ever get them as good as she makes them!  YUM!