The darkness is disorienting as I am trying to keep to a course Kuno carefully set out in the evening before our departure. Just a sliver of a new moon is dangling in the distance, inviting Tatiana to hop on, as if into a hammock, to dream, cuddling her favourite bunny. Even the stars have lost their sparkle from earlier in the evening. Now it is very dark. Before I find my bearings, I make the boat turn twice in a circle, prompting Kuno to jump up in a moment of concern. Reefs are on both sides and in the blackness of the night there is nothing to guide us other than the carefully planned course on chart and the GPS. We are leaving Barbuda, returning to civilization of the French island of St. Barths, and this is my first nighttime sail. Once we get through the reefs, moving through the nothingness, being gently picked up and dropped down by the waves coming from behind becomes very soothing.
I call Barbuda the forgotten island. Forgotten by tourists that is. It is as laid back as I have ever encountered. It doesn’t have the hotels, bars and other tourist attractions that other islands offer, just miles and miles of deserted beaches. It also doesn’t have a very good anchorage and our nights are rolly in the northerly swell. It is a good thing we have a foam mattress top that makes us “stick” to the bed. Even then though, after several nights of it, I am looking forward to a night in a calmer place.Talking to people in Barbuda and reading up on it in our various guides, I can’t help but wonder what the island’s future will bring. There is no infrastructure, nor potential for solid economy other than one based on tourism. Barbuda is an exception in the region and has elected to not go the tourism route. Ownership of land is non-existent. All properties are leases and any development is discouraged (sometimes in a somewhat militant way). 
The only source of income is export of sand. The sand in Barbuda is beautiful, tinged with pink of the broken shells and corals. But exporting sand?? Barbuda is apparently supplying all of the Caribbean with sand for building and beaches. We witnessed large barges leaving the island as we were sailing to Barbuda. One has to wonder what it will eventually do to the island. There is no way that this amount of sand can be replaced naturally. Some old-timers have mentioned that they notice the shrinking beaches. The only other source of employment on the island is the government itself. In a typical Caribbean fashion, countless government offices dot the only town, Codrington, and are literally stuffed with staff that have nothing to do. Efficiency is not important here and when we want to check out from the island, we have to walk in the lunch time heat all around town to three different offices. Lengthy forms, manual copying, stamps and signatures are the order of the day, yet I saw a Blackberry on one of the desks and people are busy talking on cellphones in the most unexpected places and situations. The government jobs must pay reasonably well, as we see some very nice cars and generally people seem to live well for a Caribbean standard. Yet all of this is financed by the sand… Recently, exporting lobster has become a growing industry, but we all know how lasting that can be.
But for now, the forgotten island is a string of nearly perfect beaches, ringed by several reefs and mostly known for one of the largest frigate bird colonies. 19 thousand pairs of frigates come here from October to May to mate and raise their one off-spring each. The males take
care of the babies for the first few weeks, but after a while, they leave for another colony in Yucatan (party time?) until it is time to mate again. Then the good old moms take over. The chicks are not ready to fly and be independent until they are at least 8 months old and as a result frigates have babies only every second year. They live to be 40 years. The frigates are magnificent fliers with wings spanning up to 8 feet. They fish by scooping fish from the surface. If they are unfortunate enough to fall into the water, they cannot fly off by themselves and if unaided by other birds lifting them from the water, they will die.
The only source of income is export of sand. The sand in Barbuda is beautiful, tinged with pink of the broken shells and corals. But exporting sand?? Barbuda is apparently supplying all of the Caribbean with sand for building and beaches. We witnessed large barges leaving the island as we were sailing to Barbuda. One has to wonder what it will eventually do to the island. There is no way that this amount of sand can be replaced naturally. Some old-timers have mentioned that they notice the shrinking beaches. The only other source of employment on the island is the government itself. In a typical Caribbean fashion, countless government offices dot the only town, Codrington, and are literally stuffed with staff that have nothing to do. Efficiency is not important here and when we want to check out from the island, we have to walk in the lunch time heat all around town to three different offices. Lengthy forms, manual copying, stamps and signatures are the order of the day, yet I saw a Blackberry on one of the desks and people are busy talking on cellphones in the most unexpected places and situations. The government jobs must pay reasonably well, as we see some very nice cars and generally people seem to live well for a Caribbean standard. Yet all of this is financed by the sand… Recently, exporting lobster has become a growing industry, but we all know how lasting that can be.But for now, the forgotten island is a string of nearly perfect beaches, ringed by several reefs and mostly known for one of the largest frigate bird colonies. 19 thousand pairs of frigates come here from October to May to mate and raise their one off-spring each. The males take
care of the babies for the first few weeks, but after a while, they leave for another colony in Yucatan (party time?) until it is time to mate again. Then the good old moms take over. The chicks are not ready to fly and be independent until they are at least 8 months old and as a result frigates have babies only every second year. They live to be 40 years. The frigates are magnificent fliers with wings spanning up to 8 feet. They fish by scooping fish from the surface. If they are unfortunate enough to fall into the water, they cannot fly off by themselves and if unaided by other birds lifting them from the water, they will die. We got to visit the colony within the mangroves of a lagoon in the northern part of Barbuda with one of the local guides. Amazingly, we ended up within arm’s reach of the chicks, with their mothers sitting right next to them calmly watching. Frigates don’t have any predators and are unafraid of people. This little guy in the picture is about 3 months old, patiently waiting for some food.
One day, while Kuno snorkeled the reef, Tatiana and I were playing in the water close to the beach, when we saw a most intriguing sight.
A see-through, purple and pink inflated object, merrily floating on the water, propelled by wind. It looked like a kids toy and my first reaction was to go pick it up. As I got close I could see that this was no toy, as the “body” of the object was rhythmically inflating and constricting. A quick look with goggles under the water revealed long dark blue curled tentacles on one side of the body. Beautiful in a very creepy and unreal way, I have never seen such a creature before. Tentacles are usually bad news, so needless to say, we didn’t feel like going snorkeling after that and 
Tatiana is still reluctant to get in the water now, few days later. A bit of research uncovered that it was a venomous Portugese Man-o-War (this picture is from Wikipedia), often mistaken for a jellyfish. Its stinging tentacles can be more than 30 feet long (I know I was closer then that observing it… lucky). A sting to humans can cause extreme pain at best, death at worst. Yikes! How can something so beautiful be so deadly?So instead of snorkeling, we searched for coconuts and after some serious coconut throwing against a stump, Tatiana succeeded in cracking one open, giving us a taste of coconut water (I have to say, that has to be an acquired taste) and delicious coconut “meat”. Later on we tried to lure a giant turtle that lived in our anchorage and faithfully broke the surface every 15 minutes or so, closer to the boat with bits of the coconut, but it didn’t work. Neither did bread or cucumber.
Barbuda is flat as a pancake and when sailing up to it, not visible until the last 5 miles on a clear day. But it has what is called the “Highlands”, all of 125 ft high. Our family, being of a mountain goat kind, had to scale these peaks and so we set off to the other side of the island. We climbed through a cave from the beach to the top of the Highlands for a beautiful view of the rugged side of the island, with nothing but the expanse of the Atlantic ahead of us until Africa. Beautiful, but not inviting.
Barbuda is flat as a pancake and when sailing up to it, not visible until the last 5 miles on a clear day. But it has what is called the “Highlands”, all of 125 ft high. Our family, being of a mountain goat kind, had to scale these peaks and so we set off to the other side of the island. We climbed through a cave from the beach to the top of the Highlands for a beautiful view of the rugged side of the island, with nothing but the expanse of the Atlantic ahead of us until Africa. Beautiful, but not inviting.On our way back we stopped at the only internet place in Codrington to check the weather and wind forecast. It was closed, but somebody mentioned that we should ask in the grocery store. To our amazement, the grocery store person just left with us to go to the internet place. After she opened up and started two computers, she gave us the key and asked us to lock up and bring the key back to the grocery store when done. It doesn’t get much more laid back than that.
People are very nice here although carrying a conversation is a bit tricky. To every question that we have, we get only the most minimalistic answer possible, without really getting the real story. It goes something like this:
Us to a man in a store: “Do you know how we can organize a tour to the frigate colony?”
He: “The guide was just here a moment ago.”
Us, waiting in vain for more information: “How can we contact him?”
He: “He was just here.”
Us: “Do you know where we can find a guide, any guide?”
He: “He is the main guide.”
Us: “He is the main guide, ok. Where does he live?”
He: “On the other side of the lagoon, he is the main guide.”
Us looking pointedly at his cellphone: “Is there a way to contact him?” (note that everybody knows everybody on this island)
He: “Yeah, he lives on the other side of the lagoon.” (note the lagoon is several miles long)
Us leaving… tour to be arranged differently. By now I am laid back as well. Survival instinct.
People are very nice here although carrying a conversation is a bit tricky. To every question that we have, we get only the most minimalistic answer possible, without really getting the real story. It goes something like this:
Us to a man in a store: “Do you know how we can organize a tour to the frigate colony?”
He: “The guide was just here a moment ago.”
Us, waiting in vain for more information: “How can we contact him?”
He: “He was just here.”
Us: “Do you know where we can find a guide, any guide?”
He: “He is the main guide.”
Us: “He is the main guide, ok. Where does he live?”
He: “On the other side of the lagoon, he is the main guide.”
Us looking pointedly at his cellphone: “Is there a way to contact him?” (note that everybody knows everybody on this island)
He: “Yeah, he lives on the other side of the lagoon.” (note the lagoon is several miles long)
Us leaving… tour to be arranged differently. By now I am laid back as well. Survival instinct.
