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Published: July 15th 2019
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Sunday July 14 - Today I took a day trip to Barbuda, the other main island of this country. I woke up before 5am, and got up a little after, about the same time my roommate came back from her night out. Apparently they start Carnival here earlier than the official dates, so that is probably where she was partying. I want to sleep later.
I had breakfast, talked to Jeroen, watched tv and got ready for the day. I met Ale at 8:10, as she had my ticket and was going to take me over to the boat. I’m unclear why she was involved, since the boat just met us at the beach here. I wonder if she made money on the ticket? The boat was supposed to pick us up at 8:30, but it was about an hour late. It already had passengers from St John’s and was a larger boat that I’d expected.
The journey to Barbuda took about 90 minutes. I started off sitting with two Danish girls, but moved inside to get away from the ocean spray. It wasn’t so much inside as it was covered. I talked to a guy from Pennsylvania until
a little girl who was feeling sick was put in between us. Eventually her mom came in and the guy moved. I read my book the rest of the time. I am currently going back and forth between two books. I Contain Multitudes is the book assigned to my students, which I am rereading, and The Library Book is the other that I started yesterday. It’s quite a good read actually. Fortunately, the girl next to me did not throw up. Neither did the two women on my other side who asked for bags because they were sick. Someone gave them some peppermint essential oil and they were busy sniffing that.
I realized quite early on that this day was not exactly what I’d expected. I blame it on my hosts not being great communicators and me not asking the right questions. I thought it would include a tour once in Barbuda, taking the public ferry to get there. I thought we were going to the bird sanctuary. Instead, this was a catamaran to two beaches with lunch. Being alone on a boat like this is a bit harder than being alone in general. In this situation it’s a
good reminder that you’re alone while everyone else is with others.
We went first to Low Bay, which was very pretty. Barbuda is extremely flat and reminded me of some of the small islands I visited from Mauritius. I took some pictures and found a tiny tree to lay under. There was a little crab there cleaning out his house, and I got some pictures before reading more. We stayed for two hours, and that included the time for lunch. My hosts told me it was a lobster lunch, but it was chicken, unless you paid an extra $20 at check-in. It was more than enough food though.
After Low Bay we sailed to Princess Diana Beach, and here the destruction from the 2017 hurricane was obvious. The catamaran was parked in front of a resort that was destroyed in the storm. The main building was still standing, but all around were what looked like little cottages that were in pieces. The resort was purchased just before the storm, and it looks like it’s a complicated scenario. The people of the island hold the land, and it cannot be bought or sold. But against the people’s wishes, it
seems the government has agreed to sell the land to Robert Deniro. Wonder what will happen with that. On this beach I also found a place under a tree, swam and read. While taking some pictures I stepped on those spikey seeds that stuck to the bottom of my feet. Quite painful and difficult to remove, but I got them. We had about 90 minutes at this beach and then we started the journey back. I have officially used up all of my seasickness tablets, so I’ll need to buy more if I do another trip like this. It was pretty rough coming back, so I’m glad I took them, but it does make me so sleepy. I decided to sit up on the top deck, and once the boat got underway, I moved to sit on the floor in the front, where there was some available shade. As the boat pulled away, a group of horses came down the beach and walked right where we had been. I don’t know where they came from.
We got back to Dickinson’s Bay at 5pm, and I walked home. I skipped dinner and just went for yogurt and granola as a
snack, since I wasn’t hungry and had so much food at lunch. The sun/pills/wind made me tired so I was not super functional for plan making this evening, though I did get a few responses from airbnb inquiries I made this morning. I also got an email back from an airline, but I had to ask some more questions. We’ll see what they say tomorrow - I might even get to charter my own plane.
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