Over the government Easter Holidays I took my sister Nell, my wife Mykl and my son Skye (5 months old) over to join other family members at North Beach Cottages in Barbuda. My family has been camping in Barbuda since before I was born and it was fun to be there with my little one for the first time.
We went across in one of our Xtreme boats and luckily the weather was nice and calm for the trip over. We saw one whale spout, but when we went for a closer look it didn’t resurface.
I was surprised at the beach erosion along the coast from North Beach going toward the windward side. One of the things i always love to do is beach comb when i am there, and once we had gotten everyone settled in i was off to explore on the windward shore.
Among many other interesting things among the flotsam and jetsam I found a message in a bottle and a glass ball. I was more excited about the glass ball which are more rare than messages in bottles. Glass balls were what fishermen used as floats before plastic and rubber floats were used in fishing, and of course are more expensive. These days you hardly see any floating up on beaches, and I have found only a handful over the past 10 years. Here is a pic of the one i found.
The message in a bottle interests people more I know which is pretty natural i guess, and I always look hard for them when i am on a windward beach. This one had just recently come ashore and was in a plastic water bottle. They usually are not the best for messages as they get bitten by fish or turtles and can leak. They also photodegrade quickly once on the beach. Anyway, it was written by a German man who had thrown it from a vessel somewhere between Madeira and the Panama Canal. He didn’t say exactly where so i don’t know how close he was to the Caribbean, but i emailed him. I didn’t get a reply yet. May try him again. Here is his address if you would like to write to him. Click on the image to the left.
After a proper family holiday breakfast, we took our boat up into the “white water” passing through the myriad of coral reefs that have wrecked so many boats over the years. As you can see the waters there are beautiful.
Nell, who answers our company phone couldn’t stay for another night so at 4 pm we were off again back to Jolly Harbour, Antigua. On the way back the girls saw a whale breaching but I missed it and once again it sounded when we got close.
All in all it was a lovely quick trip to Barbuda and Skye managed well. I was over a year old by the time I got to Barbuda on a boat so he has me beat already. I hope you managed to have a fun spring break too.