A Hidden Paradise

Helicopter Landing by Palm Beach Hotel

It’s amazing to visit places that are so remote from the rest of the world. Barbuda and Antigua are one nation and only 25 miles from each other, yet so different. In Antigua there is an abundance of resorts, hotels, restarurants, and tourists. In Barbuda there are  only 3 resorts, one of which, has been closed for years. The other two, "Coco Point Lodge" and "Palm Beach Hotel" are very private and out of most people’s budget. Coco Point lodge won’t even serve to the cruising community and Palm Beach Hotel has a special pricing strategy, which in simple words, means don’t come here unless you have an endless supply of money. If there was a survey for the most expensive cheeseburger in the world, “Palm Beach Restaurant” would definitely make it in the top ten! A regular beer is priced at $19US and a chesseburger $49US, excluding the 20% tax. We see the same helicopter flying in and out everyday just to drop off guests.

We have anchored in three different places during the 7 day visit to Barbuda. The most scenic anchorage is by 11 mile beach. The sand on this beach has a pinkish color and is absolutely magnificent and reserved for a very few people. The stingrays here are not shy to jump out of the water, gliding over it so elegantly. I wish it could have been captured on camera. We feel very fortunate and lucky to be one of those few people visiting this hidden paradise. There is not a single soul on this beach. What’s even better, is that we setup a bonfire on the night of the full moon. Our friends and us gathered wood for the fire and set up our tent just a few feet from the clashing waves on this long stretched beach. Hotdogs and baked potatoes were made for dinner. We collected enough wood for the fire to last until midnight, then we all crashed in the tent.      


The only town and the capital of Barbuda is Codrington and most of the Island’s population live here. Codrington is named after the family that originally came to the Island in the 1600’s. It’s not even that easy to get to this town. We had to take our dinghy to the beach, pull it across the beach over to Codrington lagoon, and dinghy 1.3 miles to the town. There are taxi services that take people across the lagoon so you don’t have to drag your dinghy, but taxis are out of our budget. Our taxi is the dinghy and the 2  Dahon foldable bikes. We did the trip across the lagoon twice and the second time, the folding bikes were with us on the dinghy. These bikes have carried us to many places and are great transportation. The four of us biked 3-4 miles on a dirt road to get to the windward side of the island to explore some caves.
Why do we like to explore caves? Is it because mankind originally lived in caves? It’s fun to go in caves, and some advice, consider wearing proper shoes to be able to climb up rocks to even get into them. Furthermore, once you get into a cave, beware... there might be creatures living there. As I am stepping into one of these grottos, some kind of  animal started screaming loudly, just a few feet away! It surprised and scared the hell out of me. On top of that, as I am trying to walk away, Mike points out a huge bat hanging on the ceiling of the cave just above me! We later realized that there was no bat and the animal that screamed was just a bird!
      

Locals Commenting on Charlene

One of the Barbudan's Sunday events is horse racing and bike racing. We happened to experience a bit of each of these events. This Island has a bicycle culture, since it’s so flat. Everybody rides bikes and people are very enthusiastic about them. The few locals we connected with, admired our fold-up bikes so much they gave them names, Charlene and Maxene! The horse race was scheduled for 3:30pm and we were there till 5:30pm. They kept saying the race will start soon, and in the the Caribbean, that’s island time. For us cruisers, there are two times, it’s either day-time or night-time. When night-time approaches we have to get going home. Unfortunately, we never got to see the horse races because the night-time was approaching.
If we had spent another day in this town, everybody would have known us by name and we would have seen most of the townsfolk.

Love from a Hidden Paradise

Check out the Antigua photo album on Earthling's fb page

Home for the Holidays

Something amazing about this cruising lifestyle is moving frequently. Every few weeks or so, there is a new Island to visit and within that Island, there are new anchorages. Every time you visit a new place you have to figure out where things are, for example, the Immigration office, where to find internet, a local market, marine store, where to get propane, water and so forth. It didn’t take long for these two Earthlings to settle in St. Martin. It feels like home here already. Large anchorage sites where many cruisers visit and stay for a longer time, such as St. Martin, have a VHF radio Channel just for cruiser’s. It’s called the “Cruiser’s Net”. On the Cruiser’s Net the weather forecast is given, there is an exchange of goods or services, general info, and they usually announce arrivals and departures. In other words it’s a networking community for cruisers. We have listened and engaged in the cruiser’s net since we were in George Town, Bahamas. The Cruiser’s Net has been very useful for us, we get local information and/or exchange things. Since we’ve gotten to Simpson Lagoon, Channel 14 has been on at 7:30 am every morning. We listen to Mike, the host of the Cruiser’s Net in St. Martin. Kelly has been offering haircuts for cruisers on the net and Mike has offered her  to use his establishment, “Shrimpy’s Laundry & Yachting Center” to cut hair. We row to shore, then bike to Shrimpy’s every day.  We’ve really gotten to know Mike, Sally, and Meme. They have been sailing and cruising before we were born.  They are wonderful people who have been very welcoming, and helpful to us. Offering haircuts also helps us meet new people and cruisers that have a plethora of information to share. Today we are invited for dinner aboard Elaine and Bob’s boat M/V “Mar Azul”. They have been cruising just since April and are going the same route as us down through the Leeward Islands.

We have been here for a week now and are already settled in. We could live here for a long time if we wanted to. Now we know where most of the things are and have already been anchored in 3 different sites. The other day we biked all the way around the lagoon to the Dutch side. What makes it feel most like home is that we made friends.  

St. Martin is a major boating and yachting center in the Caribbean. It’s a great place to fix and upgrade your vessel. Caribbean’s biggest boating stores, Budget Marine and Water World have warehouses here and are located almost next to each other. You can find anything for your marine needs in St. Maarten. Furthermore, you see the biggest yachts you have ever seen, which reminds me of Monaco. There are many 100+ foot yachts in the lagoon. The masts of these mega sailing yachts are so tall that they have red anchor lights, which I believe is for the safety of aircraft traffic. There are at least 10 masts with red lights on their stick. We caught a moment on video of a super yacht when we were waiting in Simpson Bay for the bridge to open. Check out the video here!

Caribbean Christmas spirit comes with the Christmas winds. The past few days it has been blowing 20 to 30 miles per hour. The windgenerator has been turning off frequently since the batteries are topped off and with the combination of solar panels there is no need to start the engine at all. It’s all about being as sufficient and resourceful as possible in this life style. In addition, Santa doesn’t ride in on a sleigh here, he zooms through on a jet ski! The Holiday’s are here and we wish all our followers and friends a Merry Christmas, God Jul, Happy Solstice, and Happy Hanukkah!

Love from Simpson Lagoon