Last Wednesday we left Jolly Harbour too late to be confident of arriving at Barbuda with the sun still high enough to see the shallows and reefs to be avoided on the way into the anchorage. So we spent the night back in deep bay and had a very romantic cockpit supper using the oil lamp for the first time. Its only taken two years to get around to using it but the warm glow will ensure it is now a regular feature.

The main anchorage at Barbuda is on the west side in Low Bay alongside the beach that forms a narrow strip of land between the sea and the large seawater Codrington Lagoon. On arrival it is like being in a classic image of the Caribbean with the bright pale blue sea, long white sandy beach and green vegetation behind. The occasional dolphin jumping out of the water and large turtles coming up to the surface to breath are a reality. In fact it is the sound of the larger turtles taking in (or perhaps exhaling) gulps of air that sometimes alerts you to their presence. Three deep breaths seems to be what is required before they swim down again. (Whales actually empty their lungs before diving because the lungs become compressed to the size of walnuts at depth - they have to spend time on the surface breathing to saturate their blood with oxygen before diving and which is why they were sitting targets for the whalers. I wonder if it is the same for turtles?)

On the third night we attempted to launch our dingy from the beach in the dark to get back to Vega. Its a long story told in Annie’s blog but the surf had risen while we were away and the dingy was flipped over when hit by a breaking wave. On reflection it was foolhardy to attempt to get back to the boat but after our experiment with near death we have pondered the nature of risk. We live in a risk averse society and you can’t boil an egg at work without going through a formal risk assessment and having a procedure documented to minimise the risk of scalding yourself. On a wet, windy, cold afternoon you can walk or drive to a cosy seaside pub and thoroughly enjoy the snugness, warmth and bonhomie. If that same pub happens to be in the harbour you have reached through stormy seas the pub experience will be coloured by the fear, hardship and self reliance to get there and for that seem significantly more enjoyable. Now, I am not suggesting that a boiled egg would taste better if you increased the risk of scalding by, say, seeing if you can get the egg out of the water with your fingers. With sailing risk management is an essential part of the exercise and successfully managing the risk is part of the experience. However, Annie used to ask why on earth we were sailing to the places we were visiting when could get on a plane with much less discomfort and get there rather more quickly. All I can say is that for me the awareness of how we have got there enhances the experience. The day after the dingy incident we watched a young Canadian family of four go ashore, leaving their dingy at anchor outside the breaking waves and swimming in through the surf. They played on the beach for an hour or so and then swam out through the surf to their dingy and motored back to their boat. Very impressive but as the children looked younger than teenage we weren’t sure whether this was the most wonderfully adventurous upbringing they were getting or just a tad foolhardy. Maybe thats a good combination in this risk averse age.

We left Barbuda in bright moonlight for an overnight sail to St Kitts. The wind was light and we had to motorsail for much of the night but the engine was off before dawn as the lights of St Kitts and Nevis came into view. Barbuda is very flat, having only some low limestone hills in the east that were coral reefs. St Kitts and Nevis, by contrast, rise majestically from the sea to their full volcanic height of around 3000 feet. The upper slopes are covered in rainforest and the tops of the mountains are almost continuously enveloped by cloud. At this point though our focus was at ground level because we needed help to revive a very traumatised outboard motor that had seawater in the oil and both seawater and fine sand everywhere else. I had washed it down with freshwater and squirted WD40 into the combustion chamber and carburettor but when it was dumped upside down the force had bent the pin that holds the motor at 45 degrees - to keep the propellor out of the water when not in use on the back of the tender - so that it was stuck at this angle. I contacted the main outboard dealer on the Island as recommended by the cruising guide but they said that they only worked on Yamaha engines and would not look at ours (a Mariner made by Mercury). Someone else suggested I track down “Brasion” who is a marine engineer working out of the harbour at port Zante where our marina is. It turns out that “Brasion” is in fact “Vybration” and I am under strict instruction to refer to him by his favoured nickname rather than George, his real name. Apparently it is common for men to have a nickname that they favour over their real name. I have yet to discover how Vybration came about. Anyway, Vybration turns out to be a real gem in great demand. He called round to take a look at the motor on his way home the day I called him. He then turned up at 0710 the following morning having said he would be here at 8ish. An hour early in the Caribbean!!!!!!! With the help of a borrowed diving compressed air rig he stripped down and cleaned the outboard and after a couple of hours work it was running more smoothly then ever! Oh, and the bent pin that I was thinking I would have to cut off? In a flash he had twisted the pin around, reapplied pressure from the motor and it was straight again. Not even Annie had thought of that, let alone me………………