Barbuda

It’s a surprisingly long way to Codrington, the principal town on Barbuda, from the anchorage off Low Bay but, with the current breach in the lagoon wall, it takes a lot less time to get to the town than it did only 2 years ago

We didn’t head ashore on the evening of 17 December as it’s a long way to Codrington from the Low Bay anchorage and we didn’t fancy returning after dark.  But the following morning we whizzed ashore in the dinghy, though the ‘whizz’ took 15-20 min.  The lagoon and the breach in the lagoon’s wall are both deep for a dinghy and are quite probably deep enough for BV as well.  But the charting of the lagoon isn’t great and of the breach made by Hurricane Irma hasn’t been charted at all (and, in any case, is steadily being refilled with sand) so taking a yacht into the lagoon without a prior recce in something with less draught would be foolhardy.  As it was, we hit something floating just below the surface with the outboard’s propeller not far off the town quay.  Happily, given that it would have been a very long row back to BV, the damage wasn’t sufficient to stop the outboard working totally but the prop was damaged and the engine did kick up and stop so it was a pretty impressive ‘something’ that we hit.

Codrington.  Some buildings are pretty much fully repaired, others are still in the early stages of repair but many are still too damaged for habitation/use

The quay was quite busy and there were a number of people working and waiting in and around the buildings and aid agency tents (now only partially used?) around the harbour.  We headed into the town and then out along the main road towards the northeast coast and the former Codrington Estate.  We found the town very quiet. Many of the buildings are still in a state of total disrepair and appear not to have been touched since the hurricane and enforced evacuation in September 2017.  But repairs have been made to a good number of homes and, encouragingly, the school was partly operational when we visited, which means that families with school-aged children can return to the island if they wish.  Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go in terms of returning the island to a functioning state.  Of those buildings that had undergone repairs, the majority still had aid agency supplied tents in their gardens and, in most cases these tents appeared to be in daily use.  Repairs were generally haphazard and most frequently made with items supplied by aid agencies.  Little looked as if it would survive another gale, let alone another hurricane.

Outskirts of Codrington.  Most of Barbuda is very low lying and covered in low scrub

We walked out along the main road towards Two Foot Bay, about 3 miles from Codrington on Barbuda’s northeast coast and, as we left the town, we passed a number of buildings where people were working on repairs – an encouraging sign.  The road out from Codrington is very straight, with a line of telegraph poles running along one side.  The electrical cables ran a short distance out from the town and then stopped but there was no obvious sign of any continuing work to connect the remaining poles (and properties) to the electricity network.

Close to ‘The Highlands’ (max elevation 125ft above sea level!), the scrub is more wooded and wild donkeys and semi-wild horses roam freely

It was a long walk out to The Highlands and Two Foot Bay but it was good to stretch our legs and to enjoy the scenery (albeit rather flat).  Once we were clear of the town we also saw a large number of goats, wild donkeys and semi-wild horses, the latter 2 increasing in numbers the closer we got to The Highlands.

In colonial days, Barbuda was leased from the Crown by the Codrington family for the princely sum of a sheep a year. Being so low-lying, Barbuda did not, and still does not, have sufficient rainfall to make it a viable location for growing sugar cane so the island was used to grow crops to provide food for the workers on the Codringtons’ sugar cane estates on Antigua and other islands. The family also visited the island to hunt and, to enable this, deer and boar were introduced to the island; the local population still hunts the descendants of both imported populations. Hunting isn’t the only hang-over from colonial days.  When the island was granted its independence along with Antigua, the land was given to the local population to be held communally.  Thus a local-born Barbudan is permitted to apply to hold (not own) 3 pieces of land; one for his/her home, one for his/her business and one to farm. Companies and non-locals may lease land from the islanders and, say, build a hotel, but they cannot be freeholders of the land.

The Highlands, close to the ruined Codrington Estate

When we reached the end of the road, close to The Highlands, we were somewhat surprised to see that the area had been neatly landscaped.  But this is one of those places where tour guides bring tourists so I guess it behoves someone to make the effort of making the place look pretty.

Two Foot Bay

We continued along on to Two Foot Bay, described in our various guidebooks as a ‘must see’ location. It’s certainly very attractive, a lovely sand beach on the windward side of the island, with the worst of the swell reduced by the off-lying reef.

The Cave to the Highlands

We walked along the beach for half an hour or so before retracing our steps to the ‘Cave to The Highlands’ which we scrambled up through, coming out at the top of the high ground with a fabulous view down along the coast.

View down on Two Foot Bay from The Highlands.  The off-lying reef which protects the beach is clearly visible as the line of white breakers

Somewhere out in this lot there’s a sink hole worthy of a visit!  But after about a kilometre the path was overgrown from disuse and we didn’t really want to get lost in the wooded scrub.  Bottom left: camera-shy land hermit crab

Our guide book talks about a sinkhole, about a 45min walk across The Highlands from the ruined Codrington Estate, that is well-worth the visit.  Well, we found the path and managed to follow it for about 20min but at that point the clearance team had obviously run out of time/stamina/daylight/enthusiasm as it ended abruptly in the scrub.  From our work helping to clear one of the trails at English Harbour only a couple of days before, we knew that there was no way we would be able to fight our way through the scrub to the sinkhole without some decent cutting tools and the knowledge of exactly where we should be heading, so we admitted defeat and headed back towards the road.  But we did see a couple of land hermit crabs on our way which helped to alleviate the disappointment of failing to reach the sinkhole.

We stopped at the Art Café for a beer and a sit down on our way back to Codrington and the dinghy

Hot and footsore, about half way back to Codrington we stopped at the Art Café for a restorative beer and a sit-down. Claire owns and runs the place and has been on the island for about 25 years since she married her Barbudan husband. She frequently spends time in the summer months back in the UK and was in London when Hurricane Irma hit in September 2017.  However, her husband and daughters were still on the island and she said that she spent a very worried day wondering whether or not they had survived the onslaught. Happily, they had.  But she was scathing about the Antiguan Government’s forced evacuation of Barbuda and the slow rate of work to restore services such as water and electricity.  Like many people we have spoken to, Claire believes that the Antiguan Government tried to take advantage of the damage wrought by Hurricane Irma to force Barbuda’s population to move permanently to Antigua, thus potentially allowing a sell-off of the prime real estate to developers.  Similarly, Claire sees the incredibly slow restoration of services – water, electricity, the school – as other levers being used by the Government to keep the population from returning.  And she points out that whilst the Government says that restoring such services takes time and is expensive, it is putting its weight behind building an international sized airport on the island, one that few of the islanders want but which potential developers say is essential……  One could argue that the Barbudans need to make a greater effort to sympathetically develop areas of their island in order to provide jobs and a modicum of economic development such that they are not entirely dependent on Antigua for things such as health services, schooling, transport links.  But a Barbudan might counter that argument by saying that development efforts they make are most often stalled and/or prevented by the Antiguan Government. There’s truth in both sides of the argument, that’s for sure but exactly where the line between the two arguments really sits is a little difficult to tell.

BV in the evening light

After a very interesting talk with Claire, we realised with some shock just how late it was.  We made a hurried departure and, happily, made it back to the harbour in just enough time to return to BV before the sun set.

A fabulous sunset with the nearby islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis visible

And it was a fabulous sunset, and all the better for our still being the only boat in the anchorage.

Low Bay, Barbuda