One day in Barbuda

Take Off
Jörgen Wennberg
Sun 22 Feb 2015 18:24
The next morning we had arrange a whole day with a guide, George Jefferey, who is ”Mr Barbuda". He lives for his country, working on preserving the old tradition of owning Barbuda as a community and voted definitely against the project of Robert de Niro. Very interesting and charming man to have as a guide of Barbuda. We first started our day tour with a trip on George’s speed boat on the Codrington Lagoon. 
 
    

The kids loved the speed!

  

On our way we saw beautiful pelicans just over the sea level spying for fish.


At the North of the Codrington Lagoon we entered the mangroves hosting the frigate bird sanctuary being the biggest in the Caribbean and bigger than any in the Galapagos. And what a sight!! Thousands of birds flying over our heads. 

  

This time of the year is the mating season, so we were lucky! 

  

Interesting how the male and female role is directed according to different specifies. For the frigate birds, the male is sitting waiting in the mangroves puffing up his red chest with air hoping to attract the female. The females fly over and make their choice of who to mate with!

  

Here we see a lucky guy in the right picture! A female has just spotted him. 

    

Once they mate, she’s done and fly away.

  

This was a fabulous natural experience! So peaceful and full of live at the same time. Only the sound of the birds made us company. We could have stayed there for hours. This was a top 10 according to Alex and Inez!

  

Coming back through the Codrington Lagoon.  

  

For Inez no place is impossible to sleep on…


Our next stop was to the immigration to clear in. Codrington being a small little village they managed however to place the customs, the immigration and port authority in three different places far away from each other. Therefore we chose to do it when we had a car.

  

Every check-in / check-out takes always looong time. Luckily next door we found a bar with wifi so we could spend our time better drinking beer and soda and doing wifi while Jörgen was doing the clearing in job.
 

Now we drove up North of the island heading to the Atlantic Coast. On the way we saw plenty of wild donkeys on the road. There are plenty of them everywhere!

  

We stopped at Two Foot Bay amazed by the beauty of the nature being totally unspoiled and …. no people! We didn’t see a single car during all the way and we were definitely alone on this coast.

  

  

From this beach we climbed up the cliffs …


… heading into a cave with a whole …


  

… leading us to the shelf of the cliff giving us a splendid view!

  

  

The way down was a bit more tricky.

  

  

But the view down too was rewarding!

  

Our guide showed us a very unusual animal. A beautiful shell, not hiding a molusque but a crab, called a soldier crab. This crab is very particular as once it has managed to pinch something with its claws it will not release until he gets some flech… so we did not dare to approach too close ;-). 

  

Walking our way back to the car.

  

We drove all the way back to the South of the island finally making it to our lunch stop. 


Once again we found a place we didn’t think existed. An isolated restaurant in the middle of a huge empty beach.

The dining hall and the kitchen outside.

  

Amazing what a luxury lunch they served us.

  

  

The restaurant is called John Taxi Tours & Services. The farther John runs a taxi and works as guide, the mother is doing the cooking and their children were serving us. A lovely and charming family!


The view of the beach outside the restaurant.

  

         

On our way we stopped for a last walk along the beach, the kids longing to run their legs.

  

  

A rewarded swim coming back to the boat!

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