South America, 2014: Barbados

20 February 2014

Today was a very busy day with two tours. The ship docked in Bridgetown on the Caribbean side of the island early, and right away, Russ went on another snorkeling adventure. In the afternoon, Russ and I took an island photography tour with a Barbados photographer, Ronnie Carrington. We had only a half hour between the end of the morning tour and the beginning of the afternoon tour, so I grabbed some snacks at a cruise terminal store and met Russ at the terminal for a quick lunch. The terminal had “free” WIFI, but with everyone, including the crew, sitting in the terminal trying to connect, I had little luck getting on and checking my email. Oh well, I seem to have lost my need to be connected all the time anyway.

The snorkeling trip was quite successful; Russ saw a turtle and an eel at the first site, then they went over to a shipwreck site. They made them wear these inflatable life vests which Russ seemed to “forget” to fill with air so he was able to pretend he was a fish and dive underwater. He was a bit frustrated with their insistence on safety gear but it makes sense, since most of the passengers are not as adept at swimming as Russ.

We had beautiful weather for the afternoon photography trip. We traveled in a smallish van (about 15 people) across the island to a beautiful beach. Along the way, the tour guide gave an excellent talk on the history, culture, architecture and geography of the island. I love it when a guide’s love for his country comes out so clearly in his words. At the short photo stops, he would give tips for photography and, even used our cameras to take pictures to illustrate his points. I don’t think Russ learned anything new but it is wonderful to see how a great photographer frames his photos and to contrast that with what we took.

To illustrate how expensive things are in Barbados, he showed an advertisement for a Jeep. It is imported at a 110% tax rate which makes it around $110,000 US dollars. Frankly, I don’t know who can afford it, yet we saw lots and lots of cars on the road and most of them were newish and in good condition. He talked about the high taxes and how the government pays for health care and schooling, all the way through university if the students qualify. As a result, the country has a greater than 95% literacy rate.

He also used his mother as an example of the benefits of living in Barbados. She is 94 years old, very healthy, and until 4 years ago ran her own private school. He passed around a picture of her, and to me, she looked like she was in her 50s or 60s. Barbados has over 70 centurions (in a population of 285,000) and he attributed this to the clean air (it travels over 3,000 miles from Africa with no human contamination), clean water, daily morning swims in the clean ocean water, fresh fruit and vegetables and the exercise - all get lots of walking in because there is very little level ground.

On the drive up over the island ridge and to the beach which was on the Atlantic side, he showed us some of the housing, both the chattel housing which is what former slaves lived in when slavery was abolished in the 1800s and the large mansions that the professionals own. Quite a contrast, yet you could see that the country’s economy is improving, even for the lower income people. Many of the chattel houses have been improved and added to over the years and were painted in bright cheery colors.

At the beach stop, those who wished had an opportunity to sample some rum punch. I passed it up since I had not had anything to eat for a while and a rum drink didn’t sound like a good thing to drink when we had a very twisty trip back to the boat. We passed through some jungle land and saw a monkey running off into the bushes with a coconut when we startled it coming around a bend.

The country is very proud of its rum making industry – they have been making it for over 300 years and are pretty good at it. The British influence is evident everywhere – Cricket is the national sport and polo is played on Sunday afternoons.

We got back to the ship 20 minutes after the ship’s scheduled departure time, there had been two detours that we had to go through that afternoon and it slowed us down. In addition, we were caught in a lot of traffic in the city proper. True to their word, Princess waited for us – but they were dismantling the gangway right behind us as we boarded. Not 10 minutes after we arrived, the boat was leaving the dock.

We were pooped and decided not to get cleaned up for dining in the fancy dining rooms. Instead, we ate in the Horizon Court which is buffet and where we usually eat breakfast. We went to bed early because we have another island and another tour tomorrow. I am going to enjoy our upcoming sea days to get rested up.

The Crown Princess in Bridgetown.

The snorkeling boat was a speedboat and sent up twin rooster tails in the back. There was quite a lot of splash and some of the tourists took out their snorkel gear so they could see. This picture shows the mother ship in the background.

The speedboat at the first snorkeling site.

The shipwreck attracted lots of fishes.

Not sure how long the shipwreck was at the site, there were lots of little corals growing all over the structure.

These little fish live right at the surface of the water.

After the shipwreck tour, the boat stopped at a beautiful beach for a swim.

This is a typical chattel house. These were where slaves lived and, when slavery was abolished in the early 1800s, they were given the chattel houses (but not the land) to own. Over the decades, the houses have been rebuilt and rebuilt (none have original timber because of the termites).