S/Y Babette Sails to the Caribbean

S/Y Babette sails to the Caribbean, carefully avoiding the Pirates, and then sails back again to Norway.

The crewmembers: Shannon
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Devil's Bridge and a view to "Nonesuch Bay"


Rental-car day! As a "bug" as disturbed my insides, I'm happy just to be sitting somewhere semi-air-conditioned. So, we bump along Antigua's unsigned roads, first to Jolly Harbour. Ho, ho, not so Jolly today, I trudge along behind Cpt.Oernulf as he inspects the fleet.
And, off we go again. The roads bare a certain resemblance to Granada's, no road signs. A little Texaco tourist map, the position of the sun and of the Texaco stations are our only clues. Eventually we find the airport.
At the airport we find the Cricket Club. Which has a crickety sports bar ala a TGIFriday's restaurant. Really. Oernulf ate both our huge sandwiches and I enjoyed the cool air-conditioning.
Back in our rent-a-wreck we map-and-compass onward towards the Devil's Bridge, out at Indian Town Point. On the way we have an interesting plantation-ruin stop. "Betty's Hope" has a good little visitor's center in an old stone house. In it there's a fabulous model showing the workings of the whole plantation from sugar cane, milling to rum distilling. So many tiny slaves, laborers and skilled craftsmen in this incredibly detailed model. The pictures on the wall show a train engine; it wouldn't be an English colony without a train somewhere!
There are explanatory sign out in the now empty fields, some ruins and two restored windmills, still standing. And I'm on my feet now, too. Feeling better.

Off to Devil's Bridge! We park and walk out onto the hard limestone rock, pocked and pitted by the sea. The spit faces into the relentless battering of the trade winds and waves that bunch up in these shallow waters, then crash constantly onto the rock. They've dug under a shelf and we can feel wave after infernal wave pounding beneath our feet. At places the waves have broken through the top creating a narrow bridge where the limestone is still intact. Great splashes of foam and bluegreen wave rise up on both sides of the slippery bridge.

From Devil's Bridge we can see across to the turquoise, reef filled waters of Nonesuch Bay, tomorrow's destination. That'll be a tricky one. You have to follow a narrow navigable path between the reefs. Looks obvious on the chart. Only the signposts are all under water.

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