I took the 90 minute boat trip with the Barbuda Express from Antigua. Befittingly we were accompanied by Bob Marley and the Wailers on the boat’s stereo as we were accompanied by a whale in the sea (you can sometimes see whales in the waters between Antigua and Barbuda from February to April).
We headed south and found a sand track which we flew through on our quad bike. There is no real traffic on Barbuda and so you feel perfectly safe when beach hunting. On the south west corner of Barbuda we found an abandoned old hotel which looked slightly ghostly with its faded grey wooden slats. Instead of taking the starring role in a horror film we decided to get back on our bikes as quickly as possible! We zoomed past the port where the Barbuda express docks and went east right the way across the south coast. We arrived at Gravenors Bay with its superb picture postcard beach. The sand was a brilliant white and the beach seemed to stretch for miles.
However when you look for one of the world’s most secluded beaches and so as there were other people on the beach and a few boats moored out to sea it didn’t meet the grade! Our mission was to find the best, most secluded beach in Barbuda and so the quest continued.
We drove back down the coast and arrived at Uncle Roddy’s cafe. Roddy sits behind the bar in his cafe and he smile is almost as bright as the colour scheme on his wooden cafe on stilts. We sat down and enjoyed a beer and fresh lobster (Barbuda’s second largest export).
We had parked our quad bikes across the road and decided to go through the light trees to the beach we saw peaking through. We were presented with a brilliant white beach with the softest sand I had ever felt. My feet just sank into it almost up to my ankle. We looked left and right and could not see a single soul for miles.
We spent an hour swimming in the sea and relaxing on the beach without seeing a single person. In fact our only companions were about half a dozen pelicans who were taking it in turns to dive bomb the local fish. Because the water was so crystal clear they were able to do it with considerable success!
Due to the pure white soft sand, the sheer desertion of the place and beauty of the sea we left content in the fact that at last we had found our perfect beach.
Charles Duncombe is an Antigua Holidays & Barbuda Holidays expert at UK travel company www.holidaysplease.co.uk he took a day to explore Barbuda and stumbled upon one of the finest beaches he had ever seen.
