Beautiful Barbuda

Here we are being instructed by the pilot before our trip in this 8-seater to Barbuda. Despite Pat telling me that these were very safe planes, I was glad to touch down at the tiny airport in Barbuda.

Pat and I just returned from five days in Barbuda.  We worked four of the five days in the schools, observing classrooms, talking with teachers and conducting two work sessions.  We took one day to see the island.

Our first stop was the caves on the east coast of Barbuda. These structures are a mixture of limestone, coral and lava from volcanoes.  We climbed into two of the caves.  Here is Pat obviously climbing ahead of me.  I was happy to be able to climb the rocks.  It reminded me of climbing the rocks in the Grand Canyon with my sister, Trish a few years ago.

We made it into the cave. Here is Pat with our driver, Devon. Devon guided us throughout our stay in Barbuda.

You can see two small rock carvings of Amerindians who lived in these caves in prior to 1700 A.D.

If you look closely, you can see the images of two faces that our guides told us were two children.

Across the road from the caves were rocks cliffs that gradually faded into a beautiful beach area.

The beach was wonderful.  This the Atlantic Ocean-side of the island.  You can see that there is a bit of a surf here as well as the effect of the tide.

After the caves we enjoyed a short boat trip across the lagoon to the Frigate Bird Sanctuary…the only way to view the sanctuary.

This is Soloman, our boat taxi driver. He was a great guide to the sanctuary. I had brought my binoculars for just this trip. They are heavy but have a great magnification. It was worth carrying them. Solomon take a look...it was his first view of the frigate birds up close. Wow...

We were told that there are over 5000 frigate birds who next there.  You can see from the photos the puffed up chest of the male attempting to attract females.

These are really giant birds.  They have a wingspan of 6 to 8 feet.  The birds with  white heads are the immature frigate birds.  The males will leave the Barbuda sanctuary soon to go to other islands to breed. The females and the immature birds will stay here.   It was an amazing sight.

After that we journeyed over to a beach across from the lagoon.  Unfortunately, the weather was starting to turn so we quickly headed back to Codrington wharf.

This beach is on the Caribbean Sea. You can see a much calmer surf here and a very clean beach. Notice the storm out at sea.

Like Antigua, showers in Barbuda last only a few minutes, so we later enjoyed a wonderful afternoon at Princess Diana of Wales Beach.

This beach was given its present name a few years ago to commemorate Diana’s multiple stays at the K-Club at Access Beach.  The beach was beautiful, the water warm, the beach deserted.

Formerly, Access Beach, now called Diana, Princess of Wales Beach

It was a wonderful day.