2nd-4th April 2011
If you are looking for a place to “get away from it all “, then Barbuda is it. The lagoon supports loads of Frigate birds and that is about the most exciting thing on this island. A few of the enterprising locals arrange boat tours to the bird colonies for a cost of around $60 USD. After seeing lots of birds in Trinidad we decided not to take the tour. The anchorage at Low Beach with it’s beautiful eleven mile stretch of pure white sand and aqua water, has only peace and quiet to offer the cruising sailor and it was a nice change from some of the other busier and noisy Caribbean islands.
The small town of Codrington has zero hustle and bustle and only one grocery store. The Green Door pub, reputedly the centre of the universe,as really a “Clayton's pub”. It had no beer,no spirits, no coca cola, no tonic water or white wine. This had to take the award for the most non bar bar we’d ever been inside and it was painted red not green!.Liam certainly had the dress code right though. During our rather short visit into town we enjoyed a lunch meal at one of the islands few eateries, Pam’s Grill. Pam does a very good chicken curry and a few veggie dishes and lucky for us she was just opening up when we arrived.. A couple of young boys on their donkeys wandered past while we ate our lunch and on our way back to the dock we spotted the immigration office sporting a closed,closed, closed sign in the window and this completed our perception of the place.. .nice but a tad dull.
But what this little island did have was lobster! Some were ocean size ( big) and some were lagoon size (small). We opted for the smaller ones and ended up buying ten which easily fitted into our freezer.
After a quick afternoon snorkel on a nearby reef, later that evening we were invited onboard an Aussie flagged cat named Never say Never, Kerrie and Neil were the owners. After about an hour of pleasantries and with Annie racking her brain as to where she might possibly know Kerrie from, she asked the question ... have i met you somewhere before ?. From that moment it took all of 5 minutes for the two to work out that they had gone to school together, for 4 years way back in the 70’s. What a small world this is.!
Two days later it was time to move on again. Our destination was to be the island of St Bart's, but as the wind angle was so good we bypassed it and continued on to St Martin.
Cruiser info : No check in or out required in Barbuda. Just ensure that you tell customs that you wish to go there when clearing out from Antigua.
The supermarket sells bread, limited veggies and basic supplies.
Lobsters,(13 EC per pound) are available from a local fellow named Goldilocks who also organizes tours of the Frigate bird colonies($60 usd) and provides a water taxi service ($40 usd return per boat) into Codrington town from Low Bay.
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