Thursday 18th January 18
Walk on the wild side
We explore the windward side of the island today with Lynn and Peter. The walk takes us along the beach, pass the airport and then back up following the maze of salt ponds lying behind the beach. Again the colour of these are fabulous, with plenty of bird life. We glimpse shy wild horses and donkeys in the bushes. They do look surprisingly healthy. The road leads us to the windy side of the island and once again the view is absolutely breathtaking. From then on we walk on the beach. Definitely the wild side, the sea is breaking on the reefs; the beach is strewn with shells (the biggest we have seen), algae and all sort of plastic rubbish, mainly fishing stuff (ropes, buoys, and fishing nets). An enormous tree trunk plonked upright deep in the sand is the most incongruous sight. It is weather beaten and beautiful. Not sure how it got there and how it ended up standing up so far from the edge of the water. The other mystery is the light bulb resting intact on a bed of seaweeds. It’s one of these big one, possibly from a fishing vessel, and there it is, unbroken, despite the fact that it had to have been thrown around in the waves to end up so far up the beach.
The beach goes on for miles, absolutely deserted, apart from us. Nice spot for lunch.
On the way back we do meet a local taxi driver waiting for his group to come back from a swim. We learn that around half of the population is now back, mainly in Codrington, one school has been reopened, and the electricity and water is mainly back on. The reconstruction is going on but slowly. He was hoping that the rest of the residents would be back for good to rebuild in the next month or so.
Back on the boat, we had visitors coming for a chat. A French family who had just crossed the Atlantic and were obviously starved of conversation. They were extremely generous, giving us a huge chunk of tuna they had fished that day… We had Lynn and Peter for dinner on board to help with it. Another lovely convivial evening.
Although we would have like to have explored more of Barbuda, especially seeing the town, time is running out. Francine will be back in Antigua now and we have promised to go with them to Montserrat. Time to make tracks tomorrow.