After installing the batteries, fixing the fridge pump and a few other boat maintenance jobs, we decided to remain in Jolly Harbor Marina “on vacation” for another week. So we went diving!

It was a wonderful experience going out with Jolly Dive, owned by Paul Roos, who has been diving on Antigua for more than 30 years. He and his staff were fun, knowledgeable, and professional. They operated much like the excellent Deefer Diving in Carriacou where we learned to dive, so it felt familiar and safe. We did three days of two-tank dives per day, and it was tiring - but magical. We love that underwater world!

Every day after diving we stopped by the marina pool to rinse off in their outdoor shower and relax. On one dive we met a couple in their 70’s who go diving twice each year for two 10-day vacations, and they have it down: dive one day, rest one day, dive again, rest again. So they get in five days (10 dives) without wearing out. “THAT sounds like my kind of diving,” says Roberta after six dives in three days!

Deciding to see more of Antigua’s shoreline, we headed north of Jolly Harbor, cruised through Five Islands Bay, and anchored in Deep Bay to snorkel near some rocks and the 1905 shipwreck of the Andes, a three-masted steel merchant sailing vessel in which a cargo of pitch caught fire. Snorkeling turned out to be far less than advertised. We also spent a very nasty night in pretty Deep Bay where wind blew in smoke from the burning dump trash at the head of the next bay to the south and we could hear the continually running engines of cruise ships in the next bay to the north (even with headlands between!). But then we had a great weather window to travel up to Barbuda, where you only want to be in calm weather… as it is very exposed. We had a nice ride up and found paradise.

Barbuda = beautiful: remote, mostly unpopulated (1500 people) and undeveloped. We anchored along an 11-mile pink-sand beach with very few other boats and immediately went snorkeling to check out a nearby reef. The reef was amazing: rising up out of a flat sandy bottom with a fair amount of fish, huge fan coral and lots of other corals and sponges. There were also schools of barracuda - well, groups of 6-10 which counts as a school to us if it is barracuda! A little creepy, but they reportedly leave you alone. They just like to lurk and show their nasty teeth. When they are 2-3 feet long that is sort of ok, but at 4’+ and fat we’re outta there!

That evening we were treated to a l-o-n-g green flash in a beautiful, clear sunset. Next day we were up and out early to meet George Jeffrey for a tour of the Frigate Bird Sanctuary. We enjoyed our visit with George, who is our same age, and appreciated his sharing of his island’s history, nature, and culture. On our way cruising down Codrington Lagoon, we stopped by a big red buoy (AM52) that broke loose from Grampus Rock in Nova Scotia, Canada and theoretically traveled across the Atlantic to Europe, down to Africa, and back across to Barbuda (that will cause night passage nightmares!). We have sailed right by Grampus Rock!

Then George poled his boat into the mangroves and we were up close and personal with Magnificent Frigatebirds. It was the end of the mating season so the males were almost ready to fly away to remote corners of the Caribbean. But some were still trying to attract a female by inflating their bright red gular sac. We saw hundreds of flying males and females, nesting females, and fluffy, white, newly-hatched chicks and older speckled chicks waiting to be fed (a frigatebird chick takes up to 11-months to leave the nest). Some birds were clicking. Chicks were chittering. It was a spectacle!

Frigatebirds are amazing… they do not produce much oil to coat their feathers and have the largest wingspan to weight (they weigh only 2-3 pounds) of any bird so they do not walk well, cannot take off from a flat surface, do not swim, and do not go in the water unless by accident. George says he has seen two frigatebirds lift another out of the water when it was caught by a wave. They catch flying fish, and snatch prey from the ocean surface or beach using their long, hooked bills. They eat fish, baby turtles, seabird chicks, marine iguanas, and supplement by stealing food from other birds.

Our weather window in Barbuda was short - with stronger wind and the biggest north swell of the season coming, we headed back down to Antigua to meet up with friends on Miclo III in Jolly Harbor. After a very fast lunch, we followed them down to amazing and historic (and more protected) Falmouth Harbor where we met more of last season’s Grenada/Trinidad posse – some of whom we haven’t seen since last July! And a fun reunion was had by all in the Mad Mongoose!