Barbuda

We spent a couple of days in Barbuda the first night we anchored off of the ruins of the the Cocos resort.  The miles of beach were deserted and clear of debris; however, the ruins of the resort were surrounded by debris and there were no signs that anyone had been there to begin the clean up.

Cocoas resort is a total loss

The resident donkeys were free to roam and seemed to be in good health.

Donkeys roaming everywhere on the island

We did some snorkeling and diving on reefs in the area and saw some sea turtles, barraccuda and other reef fish.  The reefs suffered major damage in the storms.


We moved up island to Cordington and witnessed the total devastation of this town.  Every home and business suffered major damage in the hurricanes and there are only a few repairs in progress at this point.  There are some aid organizations setting up and we talked to the woman who was volunteering to run the water desalinization facility.  There is no running water (wells were contaminated during the storms) and electricity has not yet been restored although some of the hydro poles have started to be replaced.

The next day we returned to the relief of the volunteer at the desalinization station.  As soon as we landed she called Al over to troubleshoot one of the watermakers that quit working.  Al soon discovered that a fuse had blown and we set off to find a replacement.  There are only a couple of places on the island open so we first tried the hardware store, now missing most of the roof and in total chaos.  No luck there so we set off to continue our search.  We came across the only gas station on the island and Al talked to the owner. He had no fuses and told Al that since the fuel tanker was not able to come regularly the little fuel he had was being rationed.  He suggested we try the mechanics shop in town now being used as a food kitchen for the volunteers.  We stopped by and Al talked to a computer tech there who had some fine copper wire which Al was able to use.  We returned to the water station and Al "Macgivered" the blown fuse and had the watermaker up and running in short order.  The volunteer was very grateful as she had several people lined up waiting for their daily ration (20 litres) of water.

Cordington the only village on the island