Barbados

For the YouTube version with music click here Barbados video

So we arrived Port St Charles on the 27th Dec (also my son Charlie's 20th birthday) and sailed around the island to Carlisle Bay for a splendid anchorage at the Barbados Cruising Club and with our first meal back on dry land of fish cutters and Banks beer in super friendly Dippers Beach Bar.....

John and I returned to the boat leaving Ryan to search out some local night life which he did, returning to the boat at 3am aboard a kayak looking slightly worse for wear .....

....but probably having had an excellent night out regaling stories of the Atlantic adventures to the local girls.

Next day Ryan and I set out to find a local launderette with the help of Mike and travelled back on the ZR bus with a load of gorgeously clean clothes...and then to play with the paddle boards and surf ....

surfing dude

and then a few days later a jet ski

....but it wasn't all play we really did do some work - here we are scrubbing the hull and climbing the mast

 

distraction?

Aragon (David and Raymonde) came by to say goodbye. They had been our only sailing companions across the Atlantic. They had left Mindelo the same time as us but had had jib problems and returned to Mindelo briefly before setting sail again. They had caught us up by Christmas eve and had called us up on the radio - it was the most wonderful thing to hear them and then see them passing us before catching up with them again at Port St Charles.

Aragon

All too soon Ryan left for home in Truro.  Very sorry to see him go he had been a fantastic crew mate.

I had to sort out my hair because Ryan said that I looked like a raccoon. A combination white rings around my eyes (wearing sunglasses too much) and the dreadlock 'tail' which had developed over the 21 days of windy sailing and limited hair washing facilities.

Fortunately we found a wonderfully sympathetic hairdresser,Val, who kindly attempted to retrieve the situation with scissors and a Bajan restyle.

John and I spent the next few days sorting out the boat (getting mainsail fixed and rigging up a temporary dyneema stay), going to Bridgetown, taking in the jazz (not the lobsters) at Lobster Alive Restaurant and the Waterfront Cafe but mostly just idyllically pottering about in the dinghy...

Bridgetown careenage

sunset coming out of the careenage

....and diving

..and swimming among turtles (this is especially for Clara)

I also had a few days of the boat to explore by bus the rest of the island near Speightstown and then into the centre of the island...

mid Barbados looking East

Whelchman's gully

...and on to the East coast to visit our first Caribbean landfall sighting from terra firma. I spent one luxurious night at the Sea-U Guesthouse in Bathsheba (a wonderful place).

View across Bathsheba to the famous soup bowl

Coconut milk stop

Did we really start 2000 miles east of here?

Postcards posted here

Weird limestone pebbles

I also visited some gardens so there are lots of flower photos in a separate post. I then headed back to Bridgetown to meet up with John for a final few days before heading home.