Our boat is anchored way in the distance. Not another boat in sight! Just endless empty beautiful beaches.
Barbuda is very different from any island we have visited to date. It is a very low island with some cliffs along the northeastern coast, but otherwise flat. No volcanoes to climb! It is sparsely populated with most people living in the main village of Codrington. There is no power or public water in the other areas of the island. Roads are mostly gravel although there is one short section of concrete (with more potholes than concrete!).
The island took a direct hit from category 5 Hurricane Irma and her 185 mph sustained winds in September 2017. The storm was forecasted to hit Antigua, 30 miles to the south, but overnight, it took a turn north and decimated little Barbuda. Most residents stayed since the hurricane was supposed to hit Antigua, their sister island, and the only other island within 50 miles. 95% of the structures on the island were damaged and one life was lost. Just a few days later, another hurricane was predicted to hit Barbuda and the prime minister announced a mandatory evacuation ahead of that storm. All 1800 residents were evacuated to nearby Antigua. Only the wild horses, donkeys, chickens and pets were left to fend for themselves.
Lots of wild horses, donkeys, goats and chickens roam the island.
Now five years later, the island is still recovering. Residents have slowly been returning, especially over the last couple of years as infrastructure is repaired. Tourists are beginning to return also. A new development with multimillion dollar homes is being built and that has brought jobs for the residents. Much of the foliage was destroyed so the trees and shrubs are mostly small. Residents have rebuilt homes and many of the public building have been rebuilt. The feel of the island is that of family. Everyone knows each other and look out for each other. Crime is not a problem. It’s the kind of place where you are comfortable leaving your dinghy pulled up on the beach unlocked all day.
But the real story of Barbuda is the natural unspoiled beauty across her 62 square miles. The beaches are the prettiest we have seen with such soft sand that is hard to resist. We felt like little kids playing on the beach in the soft sand. One of the beaches we visited had “pink sand”. When you look closely, you see the color comes from tiny pink clam-like shells that wash up on the beach sometimes. When the waves recede, it’s like the beach gets painted pink. Pretty spectacular! There are small wild horses, donkeys, goats, and chickens running all over the island. The foliage that has come back is green and lush although stunted in height.
Our Frigate Bird Sanctuary guide, Bozo, showing us the pink sand.
The island is surrounded by reefs. To get into our anchorage, we followed some waypoints from a cruising guide, timed our arrival at midday to be able to best see the coral reefs and posted David on the bow to guide me as we slowly inched our way through a narrow channel in the reefs. We anchored in some soft sand behind the reefs and had a couple calm nights all alone, no other boats in sight, just beautiful blue water, and white sand beaches.
View from Uncle Roddy's restaurant. They have some beach cottages available for rent for reasonable prices if you are looking for a beautiful secluded and quiet place to vacation!
There was an excellent restaurant, Uncle Roddy’s, an easy dinghy ride away. We dinghied into their beach for lunch and inquired about arranging a tour of the Frigate Bird Sanctuary in the northern part of the island. I had a phone number for a guide but was having trouble connecting with him. It turns out the internet and cell service on the whole island were not working for a couple days. After lots of work, we did mange to arrange for a taxi to come pick us up at the restaurant and take us to a boat with a local guide. After a short boat ride to the mangroves, we arrived at quite a sight! There were literally thousands of Frigate birds flying around and nesting in the mangroves. These birds have six foot wingspans and can fly for up to two months without landing! They are experts at catching the thermals and riding them up and down without flapping their wings. They simply adjust their wings and long forked tails to change direction. We had such fun watching them fly! The bird’s diet consists entirely of fish, but there is just one problem. Their wings are not oily like a pelican or other bird who dives below the surface for its food. When the Frigate bird is submerged in water, it gets too heavy to take off. Frigate birds have to pick the fish off the surface with their long hooked beaks or steal it from another bird mid-air. If a Frigate bird does land in the ocean, two other Frigate buddy birds will use their beaks to grab the wet bird’s wings and lift it into the sky.
Lucky for us, it is mating season and we were able to see the courting dance! The males have these turkey-like red necks, but then they blow them up into what look like huge red balloons to attract a mate. Both the males and females make all sorts of odd drum noises and calls. When a female deigns to pick one of the males, he is allowed to bring her sticks and straw to build a nest. The female lays just one egg per year. If one of them doesn’t stay on the nest at all times, the other birds will steal their nest materials. We saw several nesting pairs sitting on eggs. The Frigate bird is protected in Barbuda so no one can take the eggs or hunt the birds. You are not allowed to enter the sanctuary without a local guide. There are about 10,000 birds on the island, many more than the number of people! The birds allowed us to come very close to them in the mangroves. It was such a cool experience!
Check out the inflated red "balloon" under the beak on the right hand side bird and all of the birds in the sky.
You can see the deflated red "balloon" on the male in back.
The bird to the left of the red balloon bird has his wings outstretched.
Our taxi driver waited for us while we were at the bird sanctuary and then we had him take us to the cliffs at Two Foot Bay where we were able to climb up through a cave onto the top of the cliff for some great views. For lunch, our driver asked his wife to cook us some chicken dinners that we picked up on the way back to the boat. Delicious! We really enjoyed talking with Levi John, our driver, as we explored the island. He apparently knows everyone on the island as evidenced by his beeping his horn and waving and stopping to chat with various people along our drive!
Climbing up through a cave to the top of the cliff
We had hoped to snorkel on some of the reefs, but because of projected weather, we didn’t have time. We did see a ray jump straight out of the water about six feet and then do it again just at dusk. We also unfortunately had a close encounter with a coral head on the way into dinner at the restaurant in the dark. My spotlight found a coral head, but we couldn’t stop in time. Luckily, no harm done other than a few chips of paint off the prop. We decided to row back to the boat after dinner!
We are so happy we were able to visit this special beautiful place!
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