Photo: Brian and Garry at Mount Gay.
After an early night and catch up on some much needed sleep, it was time to explore Barbados. Brian and Garry went ashore to sort out internet and get some basic supplies while Gail did a tidy up on the Dol. After lunch it was all ashore to watch Liverpool play Everton at the Bridge house bar. We took the dinghy up the river or Careenge as it is known and tied up just past the first bridge. There were still yachts from the Jimmy Cornell Barbados rally stern lined to the wharf and we caught up with Klaus and Margaret from Starship. Along the water front where Christmas trees decorated by local school children, each one dedicated to a different country of the world. We found the New Zealand tree and later Paul and Gloria met one of the children who had decorated it.
The Bridge House Bar is on the waterfront, with very friendly and helpful staff who were very welcoming. We watched the game, Liverpool won 1-0, then went for a walk to find somewhere to eat. After walking through the local area with no success, we went back to the Bridge house and had a very nice dinner.
Barbados is the most eastern of the Caribbean islands and unless visited on the way in, is difficult to get to as you would have to go against the trade winds from any other of the Caribbean islands. The island is 21 miles long and 14 miles wide, so not huge. Our first impressions of Bridgetown and Barbados have been positive. The people are very friendly, although the accent is difficult to understand, they speak very fast in a mix of English and Bejan. The island was under British rule for 300 years, they have just celebrated their 50th year of independence which was gained in in 1966. Carlisle Bay where we are anchored has been a bit rolly and windy, maybe due to the current weather pattern. The bay is also very noisy during the evening and small hours of the morning as the Jolly Roger disco cruise passes by with all speakers on full volume competing with the Pirate Bar ashore for who can make the most noise the longest. During the day there are numerous sailing catamarans and jet skis going through the anchorage.
Wednesday we headed off to find the Mount Gay Visitors Centre and Bottling plant, the oldest rum in the world, first brewed in 1703. This was top of the Barbados to-do list for Brian and Garry. Along with Paul, Gloria and Phil from Scallywag we spent several hours at Mount Gay, with a tour of the plant and history of the oldest rum in the world. The tour included sampling the different blends of Mount Gay rum which saw the team get a taxi back to town, drinks and nibbles at the Bridge House before staggering back to the boat for an early night. We planned to go for a walk along the beach the following day towards the Garrison district, a UNESCO heritage site with old garrison buildings and George Washington House but the weather had other ideas as it rained heavily all day. Oh well cannot control the weather. We did manage the walk on Friday, but as it was the last working day before Christmas, all the historic sites closed at midday, so we walked around the outside of the buildings and had a nice lunch before heading back into Bridgetown centre. We called into the supermarket in town for supplies, it was chaotic, extremely busy but everyone was very polite and jovial. Across the road from the supermarket there are lots of small fruit and vegetable stalls along the road, and the small “rum shacks” or tiny bars, it makes for a lively, wonderful atmosphere.
Lurata, John and Kerry, another Kiwi boat arrived in the anchorage. We had met them with friends Erin and John back in New Zealand. It was quickly arranged that they would join ourselves and Scallywag for Christmas lunch.
Christmas Eve we picked up the hire car and headed off for the day with Paul, Gloria and Phil, Scallywag. First stop was Harrisons Cave, a cave complex where you can do a one hour tram tour. The cave is young in ecological terms and although it does not have some of the impressive caverns we have seen in other limestone caves, it was none the less interesting. We then drove across the island to the east coast for lunch, along narrow roads and small villages. The east or Atlantic coast was a lot more rugged than the west coast and we could clearly see what was causing the swell that was rolling around the island causing the roll we were getting in the anchorage. We stopped for lunch then continued to drive north, past the Mount Gay Distillery, and back to the east coast, past Port St Charles where there is some new development around a canal type environment. The centre and north of the island is where all the sugar cane plantations are located which goes into making the rum. It was clear most of the 300,000 population live on the west and south coast of Barbados. We then headed to South Point where we left Phil so he could spend some time surfing and the rest of us headed back into Oistins for drinks at one of the many rum shacks. Back to pick Phil up and then home, via the once again packed supermarket. We did not see all the listed tourist attractions during our one day tour, we reckon we had seen enough churches in Europe to give them a miss, other attractions were walks through Welchman Hall Gully and the Wildlife reserve which we did not have time for, there is also a Concorde museum which houses a real Concorde. Oh well cannot do everything.
Christmas Day we had lunch at the Bridge House Bar with Paul, Gloria and Phil from Scallywag and John, Kerry, Mike and Davin from Lurata, all kiwis. After lunch the oldies went back to Scallywag for drinks while the youngsters headed back ashore not to be seen again till daybreak.
We cleared out of Barbados on Boxing Day, leaving the anchorage at 16:30 for the 95nm overnight sail to Bequia (pronounced Beck way) in St Vincent and the Grenadines. We were all pleased that we had visited Barbados as our first Caribbean island.