We made it there, stayed there, enjoyed the solitude.

Limed the days away with boat projects. Lazily worked on the lazy jack replacements of splicing new eye in 10 lengths of line, cleaned up engine rooms, Watched sunsets and hid from the nightly bug outbreak.

We were about 2 miles from the main village, and still able to score some wifi, and Christine had scoured the internet when we arrived to find a church open on xmas with service. Well of the 7 churches not one offers xmas day service, one had xmas eve service at 1030pm but we didn’t have a way to get there on xmas eve. So that was a bummer, but in the mean time calling on skype, Christine found Jala and Calvin with whom we organized a trip to the sink hole and the caves that we had heard about while chatting with the manager at the Spinnaker bar in Antigua. Jala and Calvin run a tourism business and will pick up yachters on the west side and shuttle them to the village for $5 US. Both will give you a tour, but Jala specializes in the Frigate bird tour and Calvin in the Sink hole. Calvin was the Barbuda’s senator for 7 years and now serves as the Minister of Tourism, Sports, and Youth so we heard all about the island! When you visit be sure to look them up (268) 721-1972 or (268) 721-3280. Their website (barbuda-outback.com) is not up yet, but you can email Jala too at jala@barbuda-outback.com.

Jala picked us up the palapas and passed us on to his brother, Calvin who took us to the sights. They had recommended good shoes and long sleeves, so we took shoes in a bag. Having lived in flipflops or bare feet for a week, who wants to put on tennis shoes. And would they really fit?

First up, a hike to a sink hole. I’m thinking a small divet in the land, whoopie deal. But its exercise and the other 2 want to go, so off we trek. There are no paved roads and the recent rain storms caused lots of pot holes in the path so we curve all around the road trying to avoid them. The island swarms with free range donkeys owned by everyone and no one. The horses also roam freely, but they have actual owners. The interesting thing about the island is that if you are a local, born and raised and/or have parents that are born and raised you get 2 acres of land-free. You just find the spot of land you want and hang a water bottle, put sand down, or some kind of marker stating that is your land–and it is your land. It takes years to build a house because they do not take loans to build, they build as they save money and everyone helps everyone else build their house. They never have mortgages–imagine that!

We get to the sink hole and Calvin whips out a machette and full on camoflauge gear and hiking boots. We have shorts tShirts and flipflops whats wrong with these gringos? I had the GPS so at least I knew where we were about to be left in the woods. We walked and walked and walked. Turns out that Calvin has excellent local knowlege about all the plants and animals we walked by and shared lots with us. And going, looking at the GPS, looked like there might be a closer road, but we go on past a bunch of criss crossing trails in the bush, and twing sound of machete hitting the branches in front of you to sort of mark out way in. Stopping only for some edumacation on local plants and what other uses they have. We see some 2 foot holes in the mud, the start of a sink hole, so now I’m thinking how good can this be? I’ve dove in sinkholes in Florida, but some reason a sink hole on an island with only 200 feet of elevation at its highest point cant sink too far or it’ll be in the ocean.

We arrive and its huge and beautiful, we leave our water on the rim and hike down into a completely different vegitation, very cool. The best part tho on the way down, Calvin grabbed a hermit crab and knocked on its shell, it laughed back, no litterally made a laughing sound like you might hear on a prerecorded game show. So we had to test a few more hermit crabs, only a couple were silent but the others made everyone laugh with just a knock.

Turns out the hike was a little over a mile, took forever to get there as you didn’t know where you were going and only 1/2 as long to get back, but reality says it was the same both directions. Shoes and long sleeves not necessary, but you do walk past some prickly hogswart that could hurt if you were not careful.

Then off to Gun Shop cave, where they used to harvest ammunition and repair guns as they lured the old ships to shore. Lots of stalagtites and stalagmites, great views of the big waves in the atlantic with a sense of the power of the waves as they crashed into the rocks and over the reef. Small house built on shore to lure ships in hundreds of years ago, had weathered many hurricanes and almost all of the walls still standing. Good thing for GPS these days, wouldn’t want to assume that light on in the house showed the way directly into those reefs.

Hiked a couple of caves, and then actually changed to tennis shoes for the last cave as it took you out to the top peak with a commanding view of the atlantic, Christine will upload pictures soon.

Calvin called Jala, who took us back across the laogoon at 25 knots vmg to our boat, we haven’t gone that fast in weeks, had some ICE cold beers and decided to have Jala make us a lobster dinner. They catch the lobster in that lagoon we just crossed and ship lots to England and the Cruiseships, so it had to be fresh. A 5:30 time was decided as he had to take some canadians back to the ferry and we really should have ‘reserved’ dinner in advance. Since he ran out of cold beer, we went back to the boat to tinker and enjoy a cold one or two, I jumped in checked the props, we did preflight on the engines as we were going to leave in the morning. Jello and brownies were finally made.

Ashore by 5:30 and dinner was ready, we order 2 plates we know the 3 of us can’t eat the size of plates they serve down here, sometimes we can get by with one and an appetizer. The lobster was awesome, even Christine might be a spiny lobster convert. Rice and veggies and salad complete the meal with cold beverages. Then just before we finished, the bug time hit, little black ones everywhere, we finished the meal rappidly thanked Jala and went for a long slow dingy ride to keep the breeze going and to outlast the buggy hour. Back on board there were no bugs but just happy bellies stuffed with lobster, set out the fish light and watched the show. I was almost able to grab a trumpet fish barehanded, but wasn’t quite fast enough. I’ll practice more.

Great day…. tomorrow off to St Barts.