Position: 17:33:14N 61:46:10W

We left Low Bay and headed south, simply following the beach, sailing quietly along about 100 metres away, and in 3 metres of milky water.  As we neared the end of this long section of the beach, we had to pass over Nine Foot Bank which, as it’s name suggests, only has 9 feet of water over it.  We need just under 6 feet, but with a small swell running, it left us with little margin and we sailed with our hearts in our mouths for a short while.  Now and again, a turtle would pop up to see what was going on, before quickly ducking below the surface again.

Sailing along Barbuda’s west coast

Now and again there was a gap in the vegetation on the shore – this was where a hurricane had swept away the beach at one time and breached the lagoon.  The beach repaired itself but the vegetation had not yet grown back.  This island reeks of hurricane vulnerablility.

We anchored off another amazing beach at Cocoa Point.  We followed our standard routine of lunch, rest time, while I went over the side to scrape the weed and barnacles again.  I had a small fish follow me closely as I swam around the boat.  Then it was time to go ashore for a play on the lovely sand.  Emilia made up a game called ticks and crosses, which involved us having to search all over the beach for ticks and crosses she’d drawn in the sand.  It worked really well, except where Jemima stood on the crosses!

Girls having a race on the beach

My lovely girls

Jemima washing the sand off

That night, we prepared to leave for Nevis, a 60M sail away.  We hadn’t got a courtesy flag, so, bringing in those incredibly useful Powerpoint skills I’ve been trained so well in over the past 14 years, I knocked one up, printed it out and laminated it instead.  One way to save a bit of money!  I’d also had to do the same for Dominica – that one was a bit trickier as it has a parrot in the middle of it.  But hey – you don’t get to become a senior manager in Accenture if you can’t draw a parrot in Powerpoint!  (But clearly, in order to become a partner, I needed to have delegated this task to my five-year-old daughter – and then won the contract to supply all courtesy flags to yachties…)

Dominica and St Kitts & Nevis courtesy flags