[Pictures to be added soon]
After a quick re-provisioning in Jolly Harbor, we headed to Barbuda, the last of our five 30+ knot sustained trips. By now it was almost starting to feel normal. The good news is that it was a beam reach almost due north with the swells grudgingly shifting from NE (bit rough) to due east about halfway through the trip making the ride a lot more pleasant than a close reach despite the 8 to 12 foot swells. Good but salty (think spraying your house down with a hose then dumping a 500 pound bag of salt into a giant fan blowing at your house, you get the idea) and a bit rough passage.
But it was Barbuda by birthday and we arrived on the 8th, just in time to grab some much needed sleep and wake up to pure Zen – and a happy birthday (Paul). Why Zen? Because the western shore of Barbuda is miles and miles of beautiful pink coral beach with almost no one on it Just sit back or take a walk/swim and soak it up. To the lee is the Caribbean Sea, maybe a small reef, but we weren’t headed that way. We had nosed the boat within 130 feet of the beach and dropped anchor so a trip ashore could be a swim, ride on a SUP, or kayak. We chose at first the southern end of the beach where no one stops but there is actually a better wind break but slightly more swell. The result was we never had a boat within a mile of us while there making it pretty much our own private beach. So the days vanished rapidly as we read, walked endlessly on the beach without encountering anyone, swam, did chores and often sat or lay in the hammock while soaking it all in. In a fit of dramatic decision making, we opted to move to the northern end near the reef but still enjoyed the company of only a couple of other boats – for a while. Then the weather improved and we suddenly had more company.
When the clouds finally dissipated, we observed two “green flashes” on two consecutive nights. Very rare! Last year Gwyn saw two and Paul saw only one. So what is a “green flash”? Well, from what we have seen it is not a flash as in something flashing into the sky. Rather, as the disk of the sun sets in the sea, the very top sliver of the disk turns a brilliant emerald green for about a second just before dropping out of sight. It is amazingly beautiful but not quite what I would call a “flash” other than the very brief nature of its existence. So what is it exactly? Don’t know. What we do know is the weather needs to be without smog/cloud/etc, the disk of the sun needs to be very clear as it sets, and voila, green flash. At least on Blue Sky these conditions are very rare. We are not often on a lee shore with only the sea on the western horizon, but when we are, there is often weather, so that works against a “flash”. The scientists can take it from there. We have seen it, rarely, but always both of us in the same place at the same time – solid. Haven’t seen it since but we will keep looking. For those who believe it’s a myth, keep looking, it is definitely real but occurs in only rare conditions.