Antigua Ant-TEE-ga - ignore the 'u' / Barbuda Bar-BOO-da


The sail north to Antigua was an absolute joy. The wind direction was perfect, the wind strength was perfect. Ralph, my wind vane self steering device was working perfectly freeing me from the 'tyranny of the tiller'. It is easy to think that sailing in the Caribbean is always like this and I suppose it is - if you are going the right direction. We have had so many days of fighting the wind direction that days like this one seem more like a rare treat than the norm. I'm told that this is an La Nina year and that the weather patterns have been affected as a result.

English harbor is a perfectly protected bay but small. And we arrived two days before the start of Race Week. Race week has been run for over 30 years now and it's become a huge event. Sailboats of every description converge here either to race or watch and party with the racers. Soon after, everyone scatters ahead of hurricane season. White tents were going up all around the marina in addition to other preparations Now I'm partial to sailing and sailboats and all, but the kind of chaos and crowds created by this event combined with the fact the light was miserable for the two days we were here made us want out. We took care of business and motored out early one morning while everyone nursed hangovers from some big party the night before.

We were headed for Barbuda, Antigua's little cousin 30 miles north. Barbuda has only a handful of residents, most of them living in Codrington, the main and only real town. Barbuda is unusual in that all the land is held communally by the residents. Occasionally Antigua gets some bright idea or other involving some construction project on Barbuda which is strongly resisted by the Barbudans. There is a great story about a hotel project that was started in a park area and mobile offices were erected on the site. The Barbudans arrived in a mob and pushed the offices over a cliff. The area will remain a park. The result is miles and miles of beautiful empty beach that many outsiders would love to get their mitts on but haven't figured out how - so far.

We anchored along these incredible beaches and couldn't stop salivating over the colors and the pure beauty of them. The waters around Barbuda are very shallow and comprised of pure sand so the light bouncing up off the bottom and shining back through the water made for an aqua and turquoise heaven.

It was also possible to have miles of beach to yourself as few boats make the detour up here. On the whole island there were perhaps 20 other boats. Most other Caribbean anchorages have dozens of boats packed in together but not here. At one beach a charter boat came in and anchored within 200 feet of us - generous anywhere else but a crime here. I almost re-anchored but we were leaving that beach the next morning anyway. We kept moving north along the beach, stopping here and there and going ashore for pictures. We eventually came to the part of the beach closest to Codrington. Codrington has a large lagoon next to it but to it's landlocked. To get there from the ocean, you have to either drag your dinghy over the sand about 100 yards and motor the one mile to town, or if you only have oars like we do, you call a water taxi to come over and get you.

Town is small and simple. One paved road snakes through town splitting the collection of dirt roads in half. Still, they managed to put the Port office, the Immigrations office, and the Customs office at opposite ends of town, forcing sailors to walk all over town to clear in or out. We had to clear out and when we got to the Customs office - merely a guy's house with a gray wood plank hand painted in white with the word CUSTOMS - he wasn't there. His sneakers were on the porch, a radio or TV was on inside, but he was AWOL. We never did clear out and worried about is all the way to St. Martin.

Horses and donkeys roam free and everyone's yard has a fence to keep them out. Some of the donkeys are wild but all the horses are owned. Horse racing is big on Sundays and the guide book even mentioned the possibility of seeing someone swimming their horse in the lagoon. One man was kind enough to do this right next to the water taxi and right as we were getting back in the taxi to leave.

We reveled in the sights and sounds of the long empty beach for one more afternoon and evening then left at 0:Dark 30 the next morning for the 85 mile run to St. Martin.