December 28, 2009

Barbuda

Well we have not moved much, but what a treat. Barbuda, geologically different than most if not all of the rest of the Eastern Caribbean, is a limestone up cropping rather than a volcano, the same as the Bahamas. Barbuda's main export is sand.... to the rest of Caribbean. So if you step on to a beautiful beach somewhere in the Eastern Caribbean and feel a soft texture and think you have seen nothing better... it was imported from Barbuda.

We anchored off of the 7 mile beach, and visited the 11 mile beach. While we were there a north swell build up to about 13 feet, which crashed onshore. Jake and I swam ashore to body surf two days in a row. We are still cleaning sand from our ears a week later, marvelous fun.

The waters around Barbuda are teaming with fish life and the coral is outstanding. We landed a tuna on the way up and had 5 hard strikes on the way back to Antigua but landed nothing.

Barbuda also houses one of the 4 frigate bird mating colonies in the world. The season was in full swing when we visited, with the males puffing their throat area into huge red balloons to attract the females. Birds everywhere.

The most charming thing about Barbuda, however, and probably directly correlates with the magnificent wild life we observed, is the people. There are only 1,500 people living on the island, the vast majority descendants of the Corrdington slave estate. Barbuda, having no good natural harbor and poor soil for cane growing was forsaken by the British, and leased for the price of "one fat sheep" to Lord Corrdington. After Lord Corrdington passed away the estate was given in common to the slaves he was using on the island. They heirs continue to hold the land in common, with no private ownership today. Development is frowned upon, the locals have gone so far as to push the construction site/vehicles of a to be foreign hotel over a cliff into the water, stopping the development permanently.

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December 16, 2009

New Photos

We have added a new photo album for the Windward Islands. There are also additional new photos in the Leeward Islands photo album.

December 08, 2009

Antigua

We have been enjoying Antigua, one of the few islands in the Caribbean that has several different good anchorages which allow a near circumnavigation of the island while stopping every few miles. We are currently in Jolly Harbor having been in English, Falmouth and Green Island. Green Island was fun as it is protected by a barrier reef and has very little development. There are quite a few reefs in the area, that netted two boats while we were there, that we assisted off. One of the boats that got stuck on the reef as a charter boat. The captain of the charter boat had the engine in full throttle forward for about 45 minutes as he was trying to get off. Word to the wise never buy a used charter boat.

We plan on staying around Antigua through the holidays. A very festive atmosphere with all of the large mega yachts moving around, many of which are about 5 times larger than us.

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