Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda are two islands of very different character: Antigua, the more populated, is gently undulating, with dry forest, scrub and a coastline cut into dozens of bays and beaches; Barbuda, lower and flatter, is made of coral limestone, with an enormous inland lagoon separated from the sea by a bar of sand. That lagoon, Codrington, holds one of the largest frigatebird colonies in the Caribbean, with tens of thousands of birds nesting on the mangroves. Around both islands stretch reefs, seagrass meadows and sandbanks where green and hawksbill turtles feed. The uninhabited islets off the northeast of Antigua have become the setting for one of the most successful island restoration projects in the Caribbean.