Barbuda

Extract of our logbook: Barbuda, the northernmost island of our Caribbean voyage

Sunday, 10.04.22

We take down the sun sails, fill up the water and have a beautiful beam reach sail from Jolly Harbour, Antigua to the famous Princess Diana Beach, Barbuda. Approximately 30 nautical miles, we sail parallel to SV Polar Seal, Ryan and Sophie, known from their YouTube videos. What fun! Sailing truism: as soon as two sailboats meet, it's a race. We are faster, but they are sailing second reef due to broken sail battens. All right. But the main result for our girls is: We have won! They keep telling them the following days.….We drop the anchor in Cocoa Point, jump into the water to cool off and head to the beach for a sundowner which is a wonderful ritual. Meeting at the beach at sunset with a beer or rum punch in ones hand. It's Traci's birthday from SV Walkabout! We sing the german canon 'Viel Glück und viel Segen' with SV TripleA and have a lot of fun.

Monday, 11.04.22

Five laps around the ship, a leisurely breakfast —- we have Easter holidays and therefore no school —-and the children's boat hopping begins. On the catamaran Paikea they find a sewing mashine, Ronja is busy sewing and designing new clothes for the cuddly toys, on the american catamaran they jump from the roof into the water and the SV Sylvia Dinghy does wakeboard laps and lessons. Lotta can already stand on the board for about a minute - she is very happy. From 1600 there is a bonfire at the beach, Noah from SV Mayol has called for it. Nineteen (!) children come with their parents. There are maybe 15 boats in the bay. It's crazy, where do all these children come from? Several families have 3 children - like us - and they all travel the world. Fantastic! Some bring sausages, others stick bread, others marshmallows…. Another lovely evening among new and old friends.

Tuesday, 12.04.22

Muesli breakfast today. We have to bake, we are out of bread and there's no option for groceries at all. Ronja and me head to snorkel the small offshore reef. We see great colorful fish in crystal clear water, but unfortunately also lots of dead coral.  Since I'm already dressed up in my full-body wetsuit, I clean the hull afterwards, or at least start to do so. It's quite exhausting without diving equipment: holding on to the hull + scrubbing shells and paddle with your feet, and then: don't forget to take a deep breath every 30 seconds.

In the evening it's lobster dinner for me. Some sailors meet at the local barbecue, the Shak-A-kai. I sit with Anna from SV Nenya, Sophie from SV Polar Seal, and Traci & Andrew from SV Walkaboutaround the table. Later, there is dancing in the sand on the beach. Someone has brought a small Bluetooth box. Christian stays on board with the girls and, as always on Tuesday, we have our Pancake Tuesday. Afterwards there is also a cinema evening going on on LadyBlue: Alwin and the Chipmonks. So everyone is happy. 

The Lobster Team, Traci, Andrew and I had already had difficulties beaching the dinghi. There had been quite a groundswell building up, causing the waves to break just off the beach. The women got a little bit wet while landing, Andrew fell completely into the water.  Ooops. We hadn't expected this wave.

Later, with a little too much rum punch, it becomes even more difficult to get into the dinghy and get away from the beach. We can`t hold the dinghy stright, it moves and a wave fills the dinghy and makes us all wet: bags + expensive camera included. We have no chance with the waves. This means we carry the dinghy 500m up the beach and try again. At least there is no reef nearby. We watch the waves, waiting for the gap. With the help of two other men who try to hold the dinghy in place while we climb in and start the engine, we finally manage to get off. Soaking wet, salty and sandy, we take a shower back on board. An expensive evening...... 

Wednesday, 13.04.22

Extensive beach walk at Princess Diana Beach - 13km of finest white sand. Completely leeward, there is neither rubbish nor seaweed. Fantastic! We walk, collect shells, play ball. Pure happiness floods us. A giant ray very close. We can watch how it majestically ploughs through the water. And so many birds! They chirp so loudly, as we can only hear it in Germany while the first few days of returning from the south. And I get thoughtful. We should urgently plan when we will be at the waterfront next time. I can't really imagine my life without water anymore. Without water, without a boat? Maybe an autumn holiday on Borkum or Wangerooge?

Later there will be "Halyardswinging" on LadyBlue. For those who don't know it: Jumping and swinging with the main halyard passed through the end of the extended spinnaker pole. The children swing from the bow pulpit around the spinnaker pole to the back- letting go in time and jumping into the water is of course important. The children have a lot of fun. 

Wakeboard rounds with the dinghy are also the order of the day again. Later the day, I distribute the children back to their own boats. The adults had coffee on SV Polar Seal with Ryan and Sophie while Lotta was playing chess in the cockpit. For dinner, we change to SV Walkabout - spontaneously - so we have “pasta and pesto” with prepared “meatballs out of a bag” - a sailor's dinner. Absolutely fantastic! As always a very nice evening and also a little bit sad, because this time it's time to say goodbye - our ways continue in different directions. Oh no!

We arrange to meet at the boat show in Southampton in September again. Marla's quote of the evening: Traci, there are stars under your table! What happened?  Marla was allowed to play with the astronavigation app on Traci's mobile phone. GPS coded, the star images are displayed after aligning the mobile phone. Even if you point down under the table.....

14.04.22

While we are having breakfast, a giant slide is set up next to us on a luxury motor yacht (180 feet! 12 guests, 14 crew), from the very top down into the water. Our children have to go over and ask if they can go up. Unfortunately, no, the slide is only allowed for adults?!? And then it's one of those days when you ask yourself in the evening what you've actually done......the plan was to go to the beach, but somehow we were not at the beach. Ronja made bracelets with her new friends at SV Sauvage. The familey of SV Aurora with her 3 boys was with us on board, drinking coffee, chatting, making life plans. They have been travelling as a family of 5 for the 3 years, now it's time to arrive somewhere, build a house, in Sweden. Exciting times. We have delicious salad for lunch, SV Luna had brought us tomatoes, cucumbers and apples from Antigua. Later on, at SV Nenya, we do some Easter crafts. Dressed up as Easter witches - according to Swedish custom - the Easter crafts are later distributed to the other boats in the bay. Children from 2-11 years old from all over the world sit in the dinghy and have a lot of fun. They also get sweets, of course.

15.04.22

Project of the morning: we build a sand wall with the lettering ROBUSO Solingen according to a photo from 1923. We enjoy working the sticky sand, jumping into the water again and again, letting ourselves drift in the waves. I can't get enough of this turquoise. Madness! And the funny little birds that flit in and out of the water with every wave, finding and pecking at something eatable in the sand. And then the wild horses, wonderful how they walk on the beach as if it were the most normal thing. Obviously it is here, just not for us. For lunch we have delicious couscous, then Ronja disappears once again onto our neighbouring boat, the catamaran Sauvage with Karmen and Tom. The three of them are obviously having a lot of fun, we can hear their laughter across. Jamie and Tom from SV Wildthing² and Anna join us on board, there is puzzling, playing, and swinging in the water. Later in the evening a last sundowner at the Shak-A-Kai. SV Wildthing², SV Sylvia, SV Sauvage and SV Triple-A also come along. We have to persuade him to open, as he wanted to dedicate the day to the Lord. Oh yes, it's Good Friday. Easter is really hardly noticeable here.

16.04.22

In the morning there is another round of games on board SV Wildthing². Our girls really enjoy speaking German again. And then it's off to Low Bay. We want to visit the Bird Frigate Sanctuary and Codrington.  Before that we say goodbye to SV Sylvia, SV Triplea and SV Sauvage. The crossing is a bit annoying at first, dead down wind. We are too lazy to set the spinnaker pole for an hour to pole out, so we try to jibe downwind....one course heads back to Antigua, the other to the small reef in front of Princess Diana Beach. But well, with some patience… Around the cape at Palmetto, first beam reach, then upwind- rushing straight to the beach where the anchor drops at 2.7m, 30m of chain out. We are still ahead of all the boats. A round of swimming to the small beach and paddling with the SUP. The purchase of the SUP has paid off. At first we thought it was such a purchase, along the lines of, everyone has it now, you have to have it. But it is indeed, living on a sailboat, a nice dry mobility option for the kids and us.

The night is very rolly, we are looking forward to a marina again.

17.04.22

Easter Sunday: little Easter chickens out of chocolate are on the breakfast table. Marla combines cleverly: "Of course, there are no Easter bunnies, because only the Easter birds can fly to our ship. That's obvious!”

We have an appointment with SV Luna to visit the Frigate Bird Sanctuary in the lagoon. George is supposed to be our guide. We can't reach him, but we are confident to find him at the Dinghidock on Easter Sunday at 10am. But before we can start, we first have to cross the lagoon and, above all, get into it. According to Navionics (our digital sea chart) there is a dinghy passage. We bravely head towards it, but it is not easy to find the opening because of the breaking waves. We bravely steer through and get completely wet. Several waves break into the dinghy, we are scooping at maximum speed, we try our way through the waves head-on, diagonally across, no matter, we get wet and wetter.  We have never had a more spectacular dinghy ride. When we arrive, we first have to change (it's a good thing that we actually packed a change of clothes for all 5 family members, as recommended by other sailors). The Luna Dinghy also arrives completely soaked. But luckily we meet George, who routinely drives us through the lagoon with his big dinghy and 60 hp outboard motor. He tells us about Barbuda, drives us through the mangroves and brings us so close to the frigate birds that we could reach into their nests. Which, of course, we don't. We learn to distinguish the young birds (white) from the juveniles (white head), from the females (grey) and the males (red throat). For 5-6 months the young birds stay in the nest and the parents bring "flying fish" as food, several times a day they fly to the Atlantic side to catch 4-5 flying fish and then bring them to the young birds. They first trick the fish by flying close and when the fishs fly, they catch them in the flight. Madness, this nature!

In Codrington, the biggest "town" on Barbuda, we try to find something for lunch, but there is nothing. Closed, or abandoned. The town is completely impoverished and littered. Roofs blown off by Hurricane Irma have not yet been rebuilt. It hit Barbuda in 2015, and all the locals were evacuated to Antigua. In Barbuda, you can't miss the gap between rich and poor. The locals are completely impoverished, and seemingly resigned. They lack everything, especially building materials to rebuild their houses. In the south, the wealthy part of the world is building a luxury resort which is destroying the natural spectacle of Barbuda. That part of the island was sold by Antigua. Only 15m of beach are still open to the public. The rich investors obviously did not succeed, or had no interest at all, in building the luxury resort in harmony with nature, the locals and sailors. A pity and shameful. But not at all unusual in the Caribbean. Some islands are privately owned, no trespassing.

18.04.22

I guess this is what you call intoxicating sailing. From Barbuda, Low Bay to Jolly Harbour, 34nm beam reach to the south, 20-28 knots of wind, the genoa in 4th reef (officially there are only 3), the main in the 2nd reef (for the first time we think about the fact that even with our small mainsail a 3rd reef could make sense), mizzen sail completely set, we run 7-8 knots and rush along. Down the 2m waves we have the feeling that we are about to take off- still sailing or already flying?? A very nice sailing trip. Arriving in Jolly Harbour, we try to reach the dockmaster, but he seems to have a day off on Easter Monday. We moor at the petrol station, which doesn't open until 8am the next day. SV Escapade of London does the same. We wait for the morning to be assigned a box the next day. But of course we take a long warm shower and go to the Greek restaurant. There is pizza from the stone oven for the children and "meat" galore for the adults. It feels very good to lie in a sheltered, nice marina. The permanent vigilance can go into rest mode. I sleep great, Christian not at all. Oh man, how to do it..... We will allow ourselves three nights here, so enough time to get used to the motionless quiet boat.