On one of her walks, Barb encountered a local “taxi” driver named Kenroy and asked him about getting a tour of the island.  They communicated back and forth by phone a number of times, and ended up arranging for a tour on April 5.  When almost our entire Armada wanted to go, Kenroy arranged for another van to come along to handle the “overflow”.  We were picked up at Spanish Point, and after a very bumpy 40-minute drive into Codrington, we drove up to the vicinity of the ruins of the Codrington Estate house in the Highlands.  After viewing the ruins, we did a 45-minute walk through the brush to the Darby sinkhole, a crater some 30 feet deep and 100 yards in diameter.   Most of the sides are sheer, but there is one place on the south end where one can scramble down to the cool, dense, tropical vegetated flat bottom with its own ecosystem.  On some of the overhanging cliffs one can see bats suspended overhead.  No visitor to Barbuda should miss this site!

After another 45-minute walk back through the dry brush to the vehicles, we returned to Codrington for a lunch Kenroy had arranged. The cooks, Louise and Claudine, were employees of the Tourist Information Office, and the meal they prepared on their day off was delicious, generous, and inexpensive.  Some of us had (huge) halves of Lobster; others had fish or chicken.  Kenroy had an early-afternoon conflict, so after lunch we walked to the grocery store to do some provisioning and Claudine and Louise opened up the Tourist Office for us and gifted us with tons of literature and Antigua/Barbuda flags while we waited for Kenroy’s return.  Then, off to Two Foot Bay where we visited the caves along the north edge of the Highlands.  On the way back to our anchorage, we stopped to purchase about 25 live lobsters from a fisherman with whom Kenroy had made prior arrangements.  Kenroy expected that the cost would be about $11 (EC) per pound — the price he was accustomed to paying — but when the vendor realized he was selling to tourists and they wanted to buy their lobsters separately, the price ballooned up to $10 (US), almost three times as much!  Most of our group indignantly turned away, but Barb quietly went into diplomatic mode and succeeded in buying six at $16 (EC) a pound before the vendor called a halt to any further transactions.  He had a buyer willing to take all of his lobsters so he didn’t have to deal with selling them individually, and the buyer was local (from Antigua).  We gave two to the only couple who had not been able to attend the tour (the captain was under the weather), and Dolce Vita and Tusen Takk II consumed the other four that night after grilling them on the Takk‘s barbecue.  Kenroy was embarrassed and distressed about the situation with the lobster man, so he stopped at his home on our return trip and gave the group (at a very small price) eight small lobsters he had cooked and frozen a few days earlier.

We think Kenroy is a great man to use for a tour.  Friendly, accommodating, and responsible.  His phone number is 1-286-724-4444