We have picked a honeymoon destination, and hopefully if I manage to secure my contract at work this month we will be booking Antigua for a fortnight at the beginning of September next year.
Rebecca really likes it now after seeing Barbuda's (which is reachable from Antigua by boat) pink beaches, and wildlife.
Anyway I found an old uni book lying around about Land Use and Development in the Carribean and I found an essay in it about land use in Barbuda.
Apparently they had a very unusual type of colonial rule, the British leased the whole island to a family called the Codringtons, and they controlled the island, using it and it's slaves to produce bits and bobs for their sugar plantations on Antigua.
However this Codrington bloke must have been decent enough because he allowed the slaves to have their own land, and encouraged trade, allowing his boats to be used by them to export goods from Barbuda to Antigua.
Boats came to Barbuda to barter, bringing with them guns in exchange for goods, the slaves (now all tooled up) started shooting all of the Codrington's cows and sheep, aswell as pillaging the local wildlife including turtles and wild pigs.
The island only had 100 inhabitants, but hardly any livestock nor local wildlife left so Mr Codrington put an end to the boats coming to Barbuda to stop the spread of guns.
The Codrington's lease ended in the 1850's and the land laws on the island prevent land being passed to anyone else, they have a common's land policy, allowing a free for all for any available land, with one exception. If you plant a fruit tree, the land directly below the tree, plus all the fruit produced can be passed between generations, otherwise your land lasts as long as you do.
So when I head over I am going to bring a few apple seeds from my home county and plant them somewhere, then I can lay claim to being a landowner on a carribean island.