Sailing to Barbuda

Leaving English Harbour behind us

We needed to make a reasonably prompt start on Monday 17 December as our destination, Low Bay on Barbuda is about 50nm from English Harbour and we needed to arrive whilst the sun was still high enough to see the coral heads as we covered the final 6nm or so up Barbuda’s west coast.  So, we raised the anchor at 0800 and with full main hoisted headed downwind along the south coast of Antigua.

Nahlinoff Falmouth Harbour

Off the entrance to Falmouth Harbour we passed Sir James Dyson’s yacht, Nahlin. We’d last seen her in the Mediterranean – clearly she’s following us!

Sailing up the west coast of Antigua

From the reefs off the southwest corner of Antigua we sailed up the western side of the island past Jolly Harbour. We had rather more wind shadow from the hills than we had expected but had a lovely sail nonetheless.  The water’s quite shallow on this side of the Antigua, which meant that the sea was a beautiful deep turquoise.  It was also a lot clearer than in English Harbour and for much of the way up the west coast we could see the bottom quite clearly.

First glimpses of Barbuda

Clear of Antigua we had more wind again and a great sail up to the south coast of Barbuda.  Barbuda’s very low lying (the ‘Highlands’ in the north are just 125ft high the rest is not far above sea level) so we only saw land when we were very close, perhaps just 4 miles away.

Off Palmetto Point

Close in off Palmetto Point, the southwesterly point of Barbuda, we lowered the sails and switched to motoring. Our pilot book was written before Hurricane Irma struck and it talks of the route up the west coast being quite shallow, running inside 9 Foot Reef.  Having not been here before we wanted to take things a bit cautiously.  We expected depths to be poorly charted after the hurricane and wanted to be able to slow down, or even stop and go back, easily.

Making our way north along the west coast of Barbuda – miles and miles of unspoilt sandy beach

As it happened we found, both on the way in and the way out, that depths were more than adequate, the minimum we saw was about 3.5m as we crossed a small bar, and most of the time we had a minimum of 6m.  Sailing along this bit of coast would be quite a reasonable thing to do.  Our biggest concern was the amount of surf on the shore – would we end up with a rolly anchorage?

(Top) the breach in the wall of the Codrington Lagoon caused by Hurricane Irma.  (Bottom) Lighthouse resort

About 4nm north of Palmetto Point we came to the remains of the Lighthouse Resort.  Pre-Irma this had been a smart boutique hotel and restaurant but the hurricane has changed all that.  As well as opening a large breach in the sand wall of the Codrington Lagoon, Hurricane Irma removed all the sand from the 12 foot wide beach in front of the hotel, undermining the buildings which resulted in the collapse of large portions of the hotel complex.  But then there is a parable about building one’s house on foundations of sand…..

Anchored off the beach at Low Bay…..

We went about a mile further up the coast before dropping anchor.  By this stage there was virtually no surf on the beach – the further north you go up the coast the more the curve of the coast and the reefs at the top of the island provide shelter from the prevailing swell.  Still, it’s not a place to be in a strong northerly ground swell.

…….miles and miles of sandy beach in both directions

Anchored in 3.5m, a long way off the beach, we sat back and surveyed our bit of paradise.

Anchored in paradise……

…..and no-one else around

Beautiful as it was though, we knew that we couldn’t just spend our days lazing on BV, so we inflated the dinghy and planned an expedition ashore.

Low Bay, Barbuda