That evening, with our stern facing the ocean to our west we watched the sun set with Ed and Cheryl from our aft deck. Not more than a half hour before the sun went down, we all watched a 150 ft. swan sloop come through the same danger zone that we had all passed through turning this way and that to dodge the coral heads and reefs we could see with, late morning sun for Ed and Cheryl, and mid afternoon sun for Beth and I. This was a reasonably new crewed boat with a value in the range of $10 million, and a deeper draft than either of our boats. Our first thought was they must have a series of waypoints to dodge through the mine field of coral heads and reefs which they could not see with the sun about to set. Apparently not, as halfway through they went aground. I went to the pilothouse to see what the name of the vessel was on my AIS. They had turned their AIS off, probably not wanting to leave a record that they had entered the anchorage off Cocoa Point at sunset. After about a half hour with almost all light gone they managed to pull off the reef.
After arriving Jackie and I went for a long walk down the beautiful white power sand beach. At the south end of the beach is the very private Cocoa Point Lodge. North of the Lodge on Lodge property is a dirt air strip. Just north of the air strip is the gate guarded entrance to the Lodge. This guard post and gate are at the end of a 7 mile dirt road that leads to Codrington the only town on this 14 mile Long Island which is 30 miles north of Antigua. The guard, who may not have seen anyone else that day as there were few people in the Lodge and those that were there had arrived by plane landing on the resort's private air strip, was full of information. With Emancipation the slaves on Barbuda became Crown tenants giving them ownership of the land. To this day only Barbudians can own land on Barduda. This has resulted in little development on the Island and the other elements of the tourist industry are not found here. There are only three current resorts on the Island and they all cater to those who want privacy. One of the most famous Island visitors, who each of the Barbudians we meet liked to talk about, was Princess Diana. Reportedly Barbuda was her favorite spot and she visited the Island frequently. The Resort she use to stay at just north of the Cocoa Point Lodge, closed down shortly after her death. It was reported by the Guard, who was a Barbudian land owner, and others we meet that Robert De Niro along with an Australian developer had purchased the development, not the land, and plans were under way to reopen the Resort.
The Guard also said he would arrange for a taxi to pick us up the next say at the gate, and take us to town the where we could charter a boat to see the Frigates.
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