Yes, after 10 months at sea we have finally found paradise. This place is exactly what we were looking for. Barbuda, man… Barbuda is it! This place has no huge or ugly developments and no marinas. You find just a few sailboats around, pristine beaches, untouched coral reefs, beautiful marine life, great kiting and probably amazing surfing. We like to believe that this is a place that only the truehearted and free spirited sailors would come to.
How funny could this be? Barbuda and Antigua are the same country and while Antigua was the place I liked the least so far, Barbuda was the place I liked the most.
The sailing from Antigua over here was rough. We had 30-40 knots of wind against us the entire time. We got sprayed a lot, but the boat was tough and did a great job bringing us to paradise. The arrival in Barbuda is beautiful, however it is quite scary for inexperienced sailors like us. There are really shallow waters all over the place and you have to negotiate your way around the coral heads to then find a nice and safe anchorage spot amongst them.
Our first anchorage was my favorite place so far. It is called Spanish Point; there were only a couple of boats out there and they all had kites attached to the back of their boats.
This is kite surfing paradise indeed. You have the option of flat water behind the corals and kite wave on the other side. While ridding you see the beautiful sand or amazing corals bellow you. Every now and then a spotted eagle ray would fly bellow the board. It was really incredible.
Behind the point some descent waves were breaking far away. They seem to be quite “ridable” if the strong wind calms down or change direction. The challenge is that they break on really shallow reefs, which actually get exposed after a few meters down the road. So surfing alone way out there is not for everyone. Besides the reefs and likelihood of a shark encounter, the paddle out will take quite a while. Well, needless to say that I chickened out.
The snorkeling and diving around that area is awesome as well. The coral is great, there are lots of fish, we saw the curious spotted eagle ray again as well as a beautiful lobster. Yummy. However, since we did not know if it was legal to grab it, we kept it where we found it, so the happy crustacean lived longer. We came back to the boat empty handed to Barbecue with our friends from the south of Brazil.
Marcelo and Carol are Gauchos (people from the south of Brazil) and as such they love to barbecue and to drink their special tea (Chimarrão) all day long. So this was the meatiest week since Ipanema set sail on our quest around the world. We had cow and pork meat every day.
Our next stop in Barbuda was Cocoa Point. This place has a stunning long stretch of beach and Feijão went wild when he got the sand under his paws. It has been a while since we haven’t found such an amazing sandy beach like this one. Here there was also some great snorkeling and kiting. This was time for Sarah to shine bright like a diamond. I am so proud of her!
Our last stop in Barbuda was Palmetto point; another pristine narrow beach with a huge lagoon on the other side. Similar to all the other anchorage spots in the island we did not find too many people or boats around. Apparently the locals are not very found of tourists or huge developments in the island. We found two mega resorts abandoned. It is kind of sad at first, but depending on the point of view (mine for example), it was for the best. Feijão, for example, loved it that he had the beach all to himself!
If we decide to spend another season in the Caribbean, Barbuda is a place we would like to spend a lot more time. Hopefully we will come back to this place.
Check out this video we did about our days in this paradise: YOUTUBE VIDEO!
Now it is time to move on since we have a bit of a longer sail to St Barts!
