Barbados

Arrival 7 January 2012

Ahh, what bliss, arrival in the Caribbean. It really made the passage so worthwhile, especially thinking of our friends in the UK being dealt lashings of freezing rain, and our friends hibernating through another Med winter, the same rain without the freezing. Actually forget that, they are freezing.
In the anchorage,there were old boat friends and new ones to meet - we had heard them on the SSB net but were yet to put faces to voices, all anchored in Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown. It has a reputation as a rolly anchorage, and it did require the use of the flopper stoppers at times (buckets or drogues hung out from the sides of the boat to reduce the pendulum effect) but it was very lovely despite that, with a white sand beach. It was a shock to hear a loud snorting noise near the cockpit one day, and even more of a shock to see a race horse being exercised 1 Km out to sea in 5m of water next to our boat. In fact one boat awoke one morning to cries of 'help help', to find an exhausted trainer thrashing violently in the water in a vain attempt to turn his head-strong stallion back toward to shore. Don't worry, they are built of strong stuff and they both returned in safety.

Spot the horse!

Our first task was to check into this new country. The books state that you must take your yacht into the cruise ship port, and the skipper only should go ashore. Well the cruise ship port is pretty unfriendly to yachts, being full of er, cruise ships, with a swell, lots of wind and yacht-snagging fenders. So we took the advice of fellow cruisers, went in by dinghy. When asked if we had come in by boat, Stu said yes and waved in the general direction of the dinghy. Satisfied with this, and without looking out the window the officials stamped us in and welcomed us to Barbados.
(If you are following next year, go to Port St Charles up north to check in, you can also come alongside and fill with water there for a couple of quid)

Barbados is such a friendly island. The country has a strong British colonial background, but has been independent since 1966. It remains a commonwealth country, and this is evident in the supermarkets where you can buy NZ produce tax free (unlike in the Uk, thanks to our EC relations).  Everywhere we went people tried to help us, without the annoyingly Turkish 'help' which usually leads you to their brother or cousin. They genuinely welcome visitors to the country. Food prices are high, even in the local market and entry fees for the tourist sights are eye-watering, even by European standards (20 quid a head to see some caves, come on!) The cruise ship passengers keep on coming, and keep on paying.
The best value for money trips, were to take the local buses. 2$ Barbados (about 70p) for any trip, so you could do your own tour of the island for about a fiver for the 2 of us, all day. The blue regulated buses were clean and occasionally sedate, but we often chose the yellow minibuses which play loud reggae just for the buzz. They ply the same route, but compete for customers, so often the journey is a little frenetic as they overtake each other to get to the next busy bus stop first to steal the passengers of the following bus. Its a game of leap frog with reggae and tight cornering. Only one yellow bus was slow and uninterested in getting ahead. Interestingly it had a sweet aroma about it as well!!

New boats were arriving every day, having finished their long voyage, like us. Beach parties and rum punches were shared and enjoyed. Getting ashore on the beach was tricky as the swell crashed onto the beach, and quite a few dinghies turned turtle on the way in. I'm sure we will all hone our surf dinghy skills before long.

Cricket is a bit of an obsession in Barbados, so we paid a homage to the Kensington Oval to see a game of the Caribbean  T20 cricket series, ideal cricket game for those like us, with a short attention span, flood lit and excitement non stop. All over in 3 hours, and quite enjoyable. We had to have a kiwi explain the rules to us though, as we couldn't work out where the target for the ball was.

It would have been quite easy to think that we were only going to sail downwind for ever more, but Mike, the commodore of the local cruising club was gathering support for the Round Barbados Mount Gay Rum race. The thought of going back out to sea, and then going upwind, and into the ocean swell was enough to put most people off. But Stu saw a record to be broken, with the prize being the skippers weight in rum. The double-handed record stood over 10 hours and he felt sure we could beat it. All the other cruising yachts politely declined, but oh no, not us. Gluttons for punishment, we signed up. Then we met the competition. One 44' yacht had sailed upwind for 24hours to Barbados just to do the race (previously had sailed the really hard way from Australia around the Cape of Good Hope) and another yacht who enjoyed their Atlantic crossing so much they do a circuit every year. And then there was the local entry, a big red racing boat, with new sails and empty tanks and no live-aboard  paraphernalia to weigh him down. Alas, we were done for. 

But we did win the practice race, with line honours and on handicap We had the help of Tony from Tactical Directions for this race which we all enjoyed. Matador did us proud on the big day. We did beat the double-handed record by about 1 ½ hours for the 60 mile race, hurrah, but sadly so did the big red race boat and the upwind practised 44'er - they took 30 and 10 mins from us respectively. Oh well, it was great fun anyway. Most of all, we got over our fear of the big bad sea, and of going upwind. When you can have a hot shower, rum and a comfy nights sleep at the end of the race you can enjoy pounding into big waves and having them dump on you and all of the boat and having the locker contents randomly rearranged once more. We now proudly sport the Mount Gay Rum Red Caps sought all over the world and only worn by the few who participate in one of their events.( You cannot buy one, even if you are a cruise ship passenger)

The competition!

The winner's weight in rum, with Mike the commodore (right)

Matador leads the race!

Tactical Tony 

One tourist attraction we thought worthwhile was the Welchman Hall Gully (23 Barbados$), an old collapsed limestone cave in a gully that has been planted with tropical plants. It is a beautiful place, with an informative guide to the plants, we visited with Claire and Mike from Siga Siga. Wild monkeys swing through the trees, and it is great place to have a picnic amongst the dangling lianas. We picked nutmeg off the ground,and pondered the dangers of walking under so many coconut palms. 

The east coast, Bathsheba

A rum shack

Carol & Steve (Inamorata) Claire & Mike (Siga Siga)

Dancing at the Oistins Fish Fry

A highlight of the Barbados visit was to the Friday night Fish-fry at Oistins, a one-time poor fishing village, now frying tourists for dollars, for an outdoor fishy meal on a plastic plate (about 12 quid, so not a fortune by UK standards). It's fun, and a bit touristy these days, more tourists dancing than locals on the reggae stage, but the older folk were having a lovely time walzting and tango-ing in the warm midnight air, dressed up to the nines in their dancing frocks. Despite the tourists the atmosphere is one of typical Caribbean fun night out and the locals eat drink and dance as they know how.

Close to the anchorage, some old ships have been deliberately scuttled to provide snorkelling fun, and the wrecks teemed with reef fish. It was not a particularly clear day, but you can get the picture:

The pictures were the last underwater ones to be taken with our Olympus Tough underwater camera, not even a year old and it took on water and blew up the battery. So far we seem to have saved it with a dose of 'corrosion block' magic formula, but we can't risk it underwater again. So take my advice, don't buy one!!! Get a separate case for your camera and at least you can see if it starts leaking and avoid catastrophe.

Soon it was time to move on, and we were due in St Lucia to meet Peter Dibben. A young American girl, Becca, from a fellow cruising yacht needed a lift, so we signed her on to our crew list and set off for a new island. It was interesting experience for us to have crew, as we have sailed on our own for so long, we didn't really know what to do with her. She was an interesting character though, and it livened up the 24 hour passage to have someone to talk to on night watch. She said our boat sailed fast and smoothly, so she can come back anytime!!