Antigua and Barbuda and Captain Windy Pants Saves the Day, Twice - Then St. Barthélemy

The next part of our trip was visiting these two islands that we missed on our way south.  It took us about a day to sail from Guadeloupe to Antigua.  The climate seemed more dry here with no rain forest or water falls and more cacti and desert landscape.

Antigua has just about everything you might need as a tourist or as a cruiser.  There are a lot of charter boats about and fun places to anchor.  We met another boat of young people chartering from Colorado.  They had wrapped a fishing line around one of the props so Paul helped them out by offering our hookah rig.  They were just starting their 10 day vacation so with the help of the rig they were able to save the engine and continue with their vacation as planned.
We got a nice bottle of red wine as a treat.

We visited a lot of places while in Antigua including Jolly Harbor where we checked in, Falmouth Harbor where we visited both there and English harbor by land, and Green Island.  My favorite place was Green Island where we stayed on a mooring in a few different spots.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving chicken with all the fixings and enjoyed the beach and snorkeling.  The water temperature is slowly getting colder.  Still is about 82 degrees F so I really can't complain much.

Nicholas gets buried in sand

Samantha's turn

Our next stop was Barbuda.  The island is considered part of Antigua but couldn't be more different.  There is one town called Codrington and the rest of the island is a frigate bird sanctuary, beach, reef, and 2 expensive resorts.
While coming into the harbor we noticed a small skiff off shore.  It seemed to be staying in one place but what I didn't notice was the bow was facing away from the wind...not anchored where the bow would be into the wind.  Oops!!  As soon as we anchored two young fishermen came over yelling help us!!  We quickly helped them aboard and set off in search of their small skiff.  Imagine trying to find a needle in a haystack, that is what it felt like.  Their small boat was white and the waves were also big enough to have white caps.
Long story short we finally found it after traveling about 3 miles off shore.  Their anchor line chaffed through on some coral.  We towed them back to shore and they shared some of their catch with us.
Along the way to save the boat we found out some interesting history about the island.  Nobody owns the land, they all pick a property and just build on it and the house is theirs but the property is not.  The lifestyle is peaceful and everyone seems to get along.
We took a day and went into Codrington where we had some awesome jerk chicken and street food.  This place reminds me of the Bahamas in many ways.  The beaches were so sandy white, I didn't think it was possible to be so soft and clean.  The only real sense of civilization was Condrington and a few other people in cars driving about.  We were sad to leave this piece of paradise but the wind looked good so we took off for our next destination St. Barts.

The beach was almost deserted except for us

We left as the sun was rising and had a wet sail downwind to St. Barts.  We arrived in time to find a mooring ball just north of Gustavia at Anse du Colombier where there is a beach that you can only reach by boat or by hiking trail.
St. Barts is definitely the place of the rich and famous.  We walked by a Hermes Boutique that had $6,000 crocodile skin sneakers.  We didn't stay long but did enjoy the beach there and the hiking trail.  Being that it was a french island some people went au natural on the beach.  Oooh La La!