A Forgotten Place

At sea for a year and a half on our sailboat Maloya, an Océanis 411, we are sailing around the world in search of ideal spots to enjoy our favourite watersports of SUP, kiting and windsurfing.

- Sarah Hebert

Going up the West Indies, we enjoyed the Polynesian-esque lagoons of the Grenadines, but we had not seen anything like Barbuda before. We just had to drop anchor in this un-known-to-us paradise to explore it a bit more and to witness the recovery after the devastation in 2017 from Hurricane Irma. After a quick sail from the English Harbor, 25 miles windward, we drop anchor at Cocoa Point. The beach was previously reserved for the clients of a very prestigious hotel. Today no one stops us from accessing the beach as a digger and trucks are hard at work trying to rebuild what has been razed by nature: only the foundations show the existence of a building. Further up this ten kilometer stretch of sand, another small complex remains abandoned, horses and donkeys roam with tranquility among the walls of the buildings with their roofs blown off. The wind fans offshore on a low relief, the ideal playground for windsurfing. So, we draw lines in turquoise blue water, only the whistling of our foil breaks the silence.