Antigua & BarbudaCaribbeanCruising

Gravenor Bay at the south end of Barbuda

By May 28, 2017 No Comments
Gravenor Bay in Barbuda
Fort in Gravenor Bay at Barbuda

The fort is more of a watch tower

Today is our last blog about our week in Barbuda and I want to spend it telling you about our last anchorage on the southern coast. Gravenor Bay stretches from Coco Point to the west and Spanish Point to the east with a mile and a half arcing bay laced with coral heads and reefs.

There are several places you can anchor inside the reefs, but we chose the middle and headed towards the turquoise shack. As long as you have good sunlight and can read the colors of the water you can easily get inside of the reef where you will find 5-7 feet almost everywhere. This bay seems to be protected from the northerly swell, but if the wind is above 10 knots and south of east you will get chop.

Old dock in Gravenor Bay Barbuda

This is the ruins of the old pier

We were here two nights and only ran into one soul the whole time. Ashore we walked a lot of the bay and saw the “fort” on the east side and the hotel ruins west of halfway. The land is low scrub with lots of sage here and there. The beach is not as spectacular as 11 Mile Beach on the west coast (a week ago Friday’s photo of the day), but it was fun walking along it. We might not have seen anyone, but we definitely had company in the form of donkeys (check out the photo of the day two nights ago).

In the water, we snorkeled several of the many reefs. The ones farther out are of course better, but even near shore we saw several sting rays. [Melek – he keeps chasing them and one day I am worried they may get him back ????]

Once we left we had a fast and wet 35-mile close reach sail to the south coast of Antigua, which is the other island (and much more populated) of this country. We will write about it next, so stay tuned!!!!

Hiking around Gravenor Bay Barbuda

Walking around the area I found this that might be from the old sand mine. Melek says it looks like a photo of me and a friend, but he has disappeared. 🙂

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