BARBADOS
It took us 24 hours to get to Barbados from Tobago. It was a nice sail but in the number of days id been there I had already lost my sea legs and I felt quite sick all the way but I was not throw up. We arrived at about 4 pm and got told that we were not allowed to step off the boat until customs and immigration had come to us and we had filled in the forms. The harbor we were at was at Bridgetown the capital. It had a cruise ship of over 200 m and another one a bit smaller. There were also about 4 container ships. After signing in it was already dark and we anchored about half a mile off the harbor in front of a nice big sandy beach with the city behind it. The following day we went down to the beach to do some transects and see what was there. We took the dingy to a pier which was owned by a restaurant called the Boatyard. After doing the transects with Tim, Blyth and I had a play the nice warm water. Later that evening I went to the yacht club and had a nice buffet meal.
The 4 dives we did there were ok but I expected to see a bit more. Unfortunately Blyth could not dive with his ear ache. The first dive was just looking around under the boat and there was not much to see at all. But I did see my first ever sea horse sleeping in some weed. The bottom though was covered with broken coral from boats anchoring. The rest of our dives were in a tiny marine park which used to be a dump and now has 6 small wrecks in it, though it is very clean now. Our first dive there was with Steve, Dale and Bryony. I was buddies with Steven. I saw quite a few small groupers and squirrel fish. There was lots more fish too but they were all so small. When we got to the last wreck there was an open hatch and Steve and I went in to have a look, it was very dark inside, but we had good torches. It looked like the engine room and inside there were some arrow crabs which looked very cool by torch light. The next dive we did was a bit of a disaster because we could not find the wreck we were looking for and ended up just doing a lot of swimming. But we did see another sea horse and a hawksbill turtle. The last dive we did was another night dive. It was pretty cool but we did not see much. At one point I reached out towards a pike fish which swam slightly blinded by my light into my mask.
I did lots of transects with Blyth, Bryony and Tim on both sides of the island. We found the whole leeward of the island is very clean but the windward side of the island is covered in plastic from the wind and currents out in the ocean. To get to the other side of the island we went by bus, for there it is very good and cheap. The first time we went on a bus we seemed to get the maddest bus in the country. He drove the bus like some race car and beeped as he went round a corner to give people a little warning. One time I swear that we missed a man on a bicycle by about an inch. Then there was this really chilled guy sitting opposite Tim saying “there is no need to worry for we are in god’s hands man, we are blessed”. We had a few more bus rides but the bus drivers were slightly more mellowed. One day coming back to Bridgetown we got the bus that the schools also use and it was jam-packed with kids.
Towards the end of our time in Barbados we decided that we would go to a different island for we had done all the research we could in Barbados so we chose to go to Bequia which is on the way to St. Lucia. We would be there for about 3 days and then might go to St. Vincent.
On one of the last nights of being at Barbados we went to an international 20-20 cricket match. West Indies against South Africa. There were not big names and I think it was B teams but it was awesome. It was the first international I have ever been to and there were big hits all over the place. South Africa batted first and set an ok score of 165. The West Indies started very badly then suddenly started nailing the ball everywhere. In the end South Africa won by 11 runs.
We left Barbados at sunset the next day and had a beautiful sail all the way to Bequia.
