Caribbean - Antigua & Barbuda
We would have liked to have spent more time in Guadeloupe, but having been away for eight months, we were keen to head back to New Zealand to catch up with family and friends, plus we needed to get Skip a B1B2 American visa. With our 2023 plans to spend the hurricane season (June-November) north of the Caribbean, the three month ESTA wasn’t going to cut it. And what a process! The online application took days and securing an appointment at the US Embassy in Auckland took weeks, it was incredibly stressful, but perseverance paid off (that and soothing rums) and we managed to lock in Feb 22, phew. We could now book flights home whilst finding a home for NOETA, Antigua looked like our best bet for both. À l'année prochaine Guadeloupe.
Leaving Guadeloupe and heading north we were now well and truly in the Leeward Islands, so named because of their location away from the trade winds – hmmm, the wind still seemed to blow consistently from an easterly direction, but perhaps with a bit more north. Antigua, Barbuda, St Barthélémy (St Barts), Saint-Martin, Sint Maarten, and the British Virgin Islands (BVIs), all volcanic in origin but presenting a flatter limestone landscape. We bypassed several volcanic islands to the west, with a plan to stop in on our way back down in 2024.
Antigua, also known as Waladli or Wadadli, population 94,298 (including Barbuda), again discovered by Columbus in 1493, then colonised by the English in 1622, became England’s gateway to the Caribbean, repelling French attacks and quashing slave revolts, to protect the extremely prosperous sugar industry before achieving independence in 1981. English and creole are spoken, and the currency is EC$ with USD widely (some might say preferably) accepted.
Nelson’s Dockyard in English Harbour is the oldest operating dockyard in the world, it was established as a naval base in 1632 when England took Antigua and Barbuda from the Caribs and where Admiral Nelson housed his fleet in the 1780s. Being part of a UNESCO heritage site, both English and next door Falmouth Harbours charge an anchoring fee USD2 per day, in addition to an Antigua & Barbuda cruising tax of ECD20 per month, very cheap compared to European prices.
Having made an initial clearance online through eSeaClear.com, the physical process was amazingly easy, and having all four agencies – Health, Port Authority, Customs, and Immigration in one room, was so refreshing, it brought back memories of many hot hours spent trudging up and down the Corfu docks. English Harbour is beautiful, old stone buildings with new lives, and a nearby anchorage in Freeman’s Bay with clear water and turtles was ideal. Anchored nearby were other New Zealanders on Next Chapter and Free Ocean, it would have been rude not to have drinks..
We had initially booked NOETA into Catamaran Marina in Falmouth but a last minute search brough up North Sound Marina, same price but hauled out rather than tied up, a much preferable option for maintenance, so we headed around and up to the sound, anchoring in a murky mangrove bay with farmyard smells but very close to the boatyard for the next day haul out.
It’s a large boatyard that was once a superyacht owner’s private yard, so there are huge buildings, hundreds of metres of concrete yard space, a chandlery Budget Marine, sail repair at Just Canvas, and access to other services through yard manager Leon and Raquel at the office. The location is quite isolated, so a car was essential, USD40 through Titi-Rent-A-Car. The boatyard is situated on Crabbs peninsula next to a power generation plant and the, as yet undeveloped, Yida project – a Chinese special economic zone of 2,000 acres “giving tax exemptions and other special legal rights to Chinese investors, and encompassing the creation of factories, luxury houses, resorts, a medical university, a financial centre, port facilities, and highways, across a large geography encompassing a significant portion of the island of Antigua”. In other words a vast barren tract of land, operating as a Citizen by Investment scheme, Antiguan passport anyone?
Having a car made it possible to drive the terrible potholed roads to eat out, provision and get to the international airport. Fancying a break from Chez NOETA, we discovered Pizza on the Lawn and the Anchor Inn, twelve and twenty minutes’ drive respectively, along dark bumpy roads. Pizza on the Lawn was wonderful – a tarpaulin strung over a wobbly picnic table, pizza oven in a purpose built lean-to, cold red wine and delicious pizza made by the owner’s teenage sons. The “restaurant” does takeaways so while waiting for our dinner, watching Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd on a TV screen behind us, we chatted to the locals and got an update on the local elections just been and the state of the economy. The Anchor Inn was up on the other side of the airport, a wooden restaurant looking out over a small marina, a calm moonlit night, palm trees rustling, great BBQ ribs and rum punch, we were the only ones there, apart from owner Andre, server Shonte, and the cat.
The boatyard was incredibly quiet, most sailors are on the sea in January, escaping the northern winter, but a friendly local tropical blackbird, the Carib grackle (Quiscalus lugubris), kept us company and offered to look after NOETA while we were away in New Zealand.
The six weeks went quickly; we caught up with family and friends, including a brief foray across the ditch to Australia, secured Skip’s visa, and then all too soon, we were off, back to Antigua via New York. It was sad to say goodbye but when we touched back down in Antigua, we were happy to be back with NOETA and the sea, home. It’s a strange thing living two lives.
Antigua, wealth, and poverty side by side, was much more apparent than on the other islands we had visited. A forty minutes’ drive across the island on rough roads, past simple colourful shacks, and roadside stalls, took us to the crowded dirty outskirts of the capital St Johns and a supermarket in Perry’s Bay, rubbish, urine, and rats across the road. The next day, we launched and anchored off Long Island and Oprah Winfrey’s serene, secluded estate. A world apart. But wealth doesn’t equate to beauty – there were rafts of Sargassum on the surface, being collected by a motorised aqua-groomer, and the snorkelling was barren - the odd large cucumber and yellow seastar.
We spent another week on Antigua, there was an unusual west wind blowing so the west coast anchorages were stirred up with particulate turquoise water, no good for snorkelling, and most bays were in smell range of the burning rubbish dump. But we got all our systems up and running, including fixing our genset raw water pump, fuel, and provisions. With diesel at 1€ per L it is going to cost more to feed us than NOETA in the Caribbean.
Jolly Harbour is an interesting wee European enclave - waterway fingers of rental and private villas, good engineering assistance (Xtreme Marine for genset pump) and provisioning. The supermarket in Jolly Harbour is the Epicurean, it has an excellent selection of goods and supports local farmers. The only surprise was that a 1.75 litre bottle of fine Antiguan golden rum was cheaper than a can of coconut milk, yikes, note to self - check the labels (if they have them) before purchasing.
Last anchorage was in Five Islands Bay, beautiful and quiet, with only four other boats. The downside was the swell making land access tricky, the water cloudy, and a downwind burning rubbish smell from the dump. We managed to find a spot between the old Hermitage Sugar Mill Tower and Maiden Island, disappointingly no easy access to the tower, but at least the sea and air temperatures were 28.
Leaving Antigua, we had a great sail up to Barbuda, arriving mid-afternoon and anchoring off Princess Diana Beach, so named because she had once stayed at a now abandoned resort on the southern coast, and what a beach - white icing sugar sand stretching the entire coast; a small resort development at the east end Cocoa Point, then nothing, just a couple of beach bars and the foundations of hurricane ravaged homes. This was our first introduction to Hurricane Irma. In September 2017 category 5 Irma ripped through Barbuda with winds of 290 km/hr, resulting in the destruction of 90% of the island and the evacuation of the total population of 1,800 to Antigua. And where were we? In New Zealand, a world apart geographically and conceptually, so hard to imagine the devastation the Barbudans had experienced, their lives being ripped apart. All you can do is pray you never have to go through something like that, and while you are there, support the local economy, and we did.
Starting with Shack-A-Kai, what a treat. The sea swells made it impossible to land our tender but owner Enoch has a couple of mooring balls ten or so metres from the beach, it meant a wet arrival but the rum punch made up for it. He then had to head off for a couple of hours, so if we were still “thirsty” we could help ourselves and just note it down. Such hospitality! And what a wonderful evening - grilled lobster, and baked potato whilst chatting to a couple of physics professors from the US, one of whose family came from Greece - Xohori and Kardamyli no less, what a wonderfully small world we live in.
Barbuda has one main road, which runs along the south coast and then up to the main village Codrington, where most of the island’s population live. Named after Englishman Christopher Codrington, a successful Antiguan sugar estate baron, he leased Barbuda from the crown in the 1600s for one fat pig or sheep per year.
Wanting to be able to go ashore and explore, we anchored further along the south coast near a small, sheltered harbour where we could beach TENDER, wander along the deserted main road, climb around an old English defence tower and then cut back through hurricane wasteland to Pink Sand Beach, and yes it was. The next day we headed up the west coast to be closer to Codrington, initially anchoring off the south end of the spit, we tendered through a narrow passage “Irma’s mouth,” avoiding reefs and breaking waves. It was a sleepy Sunday wander along concrete lanes past a mixture of brightly painted, well tendered homes, and overgrown, derelict houses. Goats, donkeys, and horses with a large telecoms tower looming above. Jaylon’s roadside chicken jerk, hot and flavoursome was a lunchtime treat eaten down by the harbour, several slumbering locals for company, one of which turned out to be our guide, Solomon.
Having made plans with Solomon for the next day, it seemed safer to be at the north end of the spit, closer to Irma’s mouth. Anchoring opposite a derelict resort, set at the end of miles of pristine white sand, there was not another soul in sight, just two barking dogs who came running when I swam to shore, needless to say I ran back into the surf, I wasn’t sure how friendly they were…
Next morning Pat took us north to the Frigatebird colony, across the lagoon, past huge piles of discarded conch shells to the mangroves and a cacophony of calls. It was amazing, so many nesting females, hungry chicks and luckily, some males; it was the end of the mating season and they were still hanging around, pushing out their bright red throats.
Frigatebirds (Fregata spp.) are quite magnificent in flight, their forked tails acting as rudders, with females identifiable by their white underbellies. They have the largest wing area to body weight ratio of any bird and even though they are landbirds not seabirds, can soar above the sea for weeks, sometimes months, on wind currents. Also known as man-o’-war or pirates of the sky, they are kleptoparasites who steal food from other birds.
Back to the village, Solomon had arranged for local fisherman James, to drive us across the island, firstly to the Derby Cave Sinkhole and then NE coastal Two Foot Bay Cave where the ancients Arawaks lived. The sinkhole is a cool green paradise reached after a half hour red clay, hot scrubby walk, and the cave set up in the cliffs, narrow sandy passages, light filtering through fire holes. Our four hour adventure finished with a visit to Customs in a backstreet Codrington cottage and securing live lobster from James’s boat down at the dock. We’d had a good day on land, and unfortunately arrived back to a broken bridle and anchor chain rubbing on our hull - so not such a great day on the sea.
It was interesting chatting to the locals. Unlike Antigua, Barbuda has common ownership, resulting from 19th century Codrington slavery compensation, and most of the people we spoke to were fearful that law changes were being driven from Antigua allowing foreign investment and development, most of them seemed sadly resigned to change. They were also very damning of the support received from Antigua after Hurricane Irma, feeling that they were forced to leave, and upon return, receiving only half of the promised aid. The younger generation don’t want to work the land anymore and some, like Enoch, view private land ownership as a means to building a sustainable future.
The national flag of Antigua and Barbuda. The rising sun symbolises the dawning of a new era. Black is Africa, and blue and white – hope, the sea, and sand. Red is for the energy of the people and V for victory. The seven points stand for the country's six parishes and Barbuda.
There is also a local Barbudan flag, where red represents the land, green the vegetation, blue the sea, all set behind a Frigatebird flying across the Caribbean sun.
