Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The crossing to Barbados took around 9 hours and was a bit bumpy as we are heading straight into wind and swell.
We watch the French subtitled film 'Intouchables', an excellent film about a quadriplegic and his Carer.
We have a bumpy sleep and interrupted night. Early in the morning we enter the small marina of Port St. Charles on the northwest part of the island.
It is Easter Sunday. We have to clear customs before we can leave the boat. This takes an age so we miss going to church at nearby Speightstown ( when the locals said it it sounded like spice town).the Caribbean accent is hard for us to understand clearly.
Paul has had a lot of trouble with the air conditioning on BP. So, we have arranged for Phil Hooper to fly from France to help sort it out.
We decide to play golf. There are about four courses on the island, we choose the closest one to us 'Apes Hill'. The course opened in 2009. Our taxi driver Trevor says it is one of the best and we did find it a stand out. It is situated on top of one of the low hills in an old sugar plantation. There are several old sugar mills and several of what looks like, old estate houses around the course. It is a cart only course as many of the paths between greens and tees are several hundred meters apart.
It is very picturesque with great views to the sea, valleys full of tropical forests with monkeys, and interesting well kept fairways and greens.
We decide this will be the final of our European cup 2012. JB is not on her best game, MB better on the day to take the trophy. There are very few people playing so it was most enjoyable.
The next day the boys decide to look for surf. One of the islands best breaks is 'Duppies', which is only half a Km north of port St. Charles. We venture by tender and find a small break which we thought was it, but it wasn't Duppies. However, we have a enjoyable three hours surfing with MB finally getting cramps in both calves (too much red wine).
Back on board we find Phil has made great progress with the air con. However, as he fixes one part another fails. A lot of the problem is electrical components.
JB, MB and Paul take the rental car for an island tour. We drive north through the sugarcane fields to locate the elusive Duppies surf break. We think we locate it north of an old derelict lighthouse. It looks very good from the land.
Next we drive east to find the Mt. Gay rum factory which we do, but we discovery there are several complexes on the island and this ageing and storage facility is closed, but we drive through it and see all the wooden barrels stacked up. Then across to the west coast to find 'Soup Bowl, the famous surf break at Bethsheba. The sea on the west coast is wild. We cannot understand how this surf can work with the constant offshore trade winds which are unrelenting. However,Bathsheba is interesting as it is a easter monday holiday and many of the locals are enjoying picnics and drinking. We drive to Bridgetown, the capital city of the island in the southwest.
Barbados is not a large island. It is fairly flat with some moderate hills. It has a strong history attached to British settlement in the 17 th century. The island was overlooked by Columbus, who was looking mainly for gold. The English saw it as for its agricultural benefits that were sugar and tobacco. It was one of the most productive in the empire for some 200 years, and at some stage a jewel in the crown. It was always run independently to England's parliamentary authority. But, at one stage Oliver Crowell had to send his army to quell rebellion here.
African slavery plays a large part in its history. At one stage the slaves outnumbered the white population by ten to one. There were many slave rebellions until abolition of slavery in the 19th century.
The population today is about 200,000, with the vast majority being descendants of African slaves. Housing and other buildings reflect an image of quiet poor to reasonable living standards. A lot of the roads are in very poor condition. The place is very colourful with bright painted houses. Although sugar is still grown they rely heavily on tourism trade which to us appeared fairly depressed. It was not busy and only a few tourists seem to be around. The people are friendly and seem to have plenty of fresh produce available.
Tuesday, we head off for surfing early. It is no good today as the tide is full and the swell is down. Barrie and MB try again at midday although it is small we get an hour in the water with some fun waves.
In the afternoon we take off again to explore the island by car. We visit the old plantation home called St. Nicholas Abbey. However it closes at 3.30 like most of the places of interest. We drive onto the west coast to see the Geysers at Little Bay, then onto River Bay and the far north point at Flower Cave. This coast is very rugged with wild surf and strong onshore winds. The roads are awful in this area and JB is worried we will wreck the rental car with MB's ploughing through the large potholes.
Back on BP, Phil has found has found the water filter to the air compressor is blocked. Using Hydrochloric acid they flushed out the most incredible growth of sea creatures and crustaceans, that had been maturing over the last few years inside the pipe, in the warm waters we have visited. At last the air conditioning is fixed.
We celebrate by all going to dinner at the highly recommended beachfront restaurant ' Fish pot'. This is just north of the port and we pass many fisherman's cottages with many fish stalls in front. We had bought from them some sardine looking fish the previous day. We made our Sicilian fish sandwiches from these. The crew have voted us 3 hats for these.
The restaurant was a standout, every meal from Tuna to Calamari was delicious.
Wednesday. We decide to have a quiet day as we are leaving for our US golf tour tomorrow, so we tidy up and pack.
We do yoga and have breakfast on the back deck, do the age quiz, read the paper, finish our blog and pack our bags to leave in the taxi at 4.30 am.
We are going to meet our group from Victoria Golf Club to play golf and visit the US Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia. We will resume the Caribbean adventures in St. Lucia in about two weeks.
JB and Mick
- comments