9-3rd February
That first evening on the other side of the atlantic the promised turquoise water of the anchorage stretched out and dropped off into a sudden dark blue, melting into the darkening night sky. We were exhausted and exhilerated. Already from that first brief evening on land it was clear that the people were very friendly, greeting you on the streets to wish you a good evening. The houses and shops were a mixture of colourful peeling paint and extremely fancy buildings with cake frosting white windows, stone arches and balconies. The pier was full of charter catamarans and the sea full of slow and peaceful turtles.
To the right of the anchorage was The Hilton hotel. An enormous shiny blot on the landscape, lighting up the night with valentines’ day advertisements. A long curve of beach stretched from opposite its carpark all the way to the channel into town a good 40 minute dingy ride and the beach was full of restaurants and cocktail bars. One large restaurant with a long pier was hurricane battered and never repaired. Waves curled and broke impressively along the reef between the beach and the anchorage, depending on the tide, and was full of surfers day and night. Some large glistening establishments looked like they came straight out of films with firepits and soft cushioned wicker sunbeds and sofas right on the beach and every morning a party of horses would swim out all the way to our boats glistening and snorting like hairy sea monsters. Niels checked us into the country and I caught up with the others. They had had quite an eventful crossing simply due to the fact that there were 5 of them and there was always something happening or someone getting hurt!
Our stay in Barbados was a short and sweet 6 days, and most of that was in Bridgetown.
It was clearly a wealthy country, or wealthy by comparison at least to Cape Verde, Senegal and even the Canaries. The average wage is something like 2000 Barbados Dollar a month (which has a similar value to the euro) and everyone we met was very generous.
Otto asked in a sailmakers if he could buy some scraps of sailcloth and had been gifted the whole end of the roll.
Then while on the hunt for some nice scrap wood in a huge wood workshop we were given some beautiful pieces of local mahogany just like that. From our piece, Niels make the most beautiful penny board.
The sea was new and warm and exciting. At night there were big splashes from fish hunting around the boat, and turtles would silently appear out of the blue and then disappear back into it. A couple of shipwrecks in the middle of the bay had been enveloped by corals and sponges and made a beautiful snorkeling spot. Otherworldly colours refracted in the shadows of the ships. Luminous blue fish that appeared to glow, enormous bright purple fans like soft cobwebs dancing in invisible currents, golden tubular sponges with wide round open mouths as if caught in song, complicated etchings of corals look like mandalas and brains and secret codes all too clever to be understood by a pair of stupid squashed eyes in a fogged up pair of ill-fitting goggles.
The last scrap of beach before the rocky edge of the bay had an artificial wave break that made landing by dingy sometimes manageable for us. On arrival we’d jump out and lift the motor, carrying the dingy up a steep and sharp beach made entirely of the bleached bones of corals that clinked and pinched underfoot.
At the bus station we were immersed into the bustling crowds. A steward of some kind was very attentive, especially since apon asking us where we were going we asked him instead where he suggested we go. This concerned him, and after a discussion with the glamorous elderly woman at the kiosk with the longest pink finger nails I have ever seen and a short bleached afro, they decided on Welchman Hall where there is allot of forests. He hovered close-by and when the bus arrived had a word with the driver to be absolutely sure we were going where we wanted. On the bus everyone greeted each other and made polite conversation, paying at the end through the driver’s window. again we were the only white people taking the bus like in Senegal or Cape Verde, maybe tourists normally take taxis. Soon the stone town houses whittled down into sweet colourful wooden cabin-style homes with verandas and white window frames. There were green fields and hedgerows that look so English I was disoriented.
The forests were a different story altogether, dark and dense and full of creepers and vines and palms and huge snails. Somehow of all of the island’s, it was the least accessible, and we walked along the road for a long time looking for a path or track to take us into its heart which never came. Locals leaning on garden fences and calling out to friends through car windows were interested and helpful but quite fearful for two young tourists looking for forest, giving warnings of gun crime in the area.
The climate was pretty fantastic, a golden syrup stream of sunlight could be clouded over by a downpour of fast fine rain, hungrily drunken in by the vast green expanse, and as fast as we were wet, we were dry. Following the road was enough of an adventure with tall palms that made you dizzy looking up. A dark blue hummingbird danced off the leaves and flowers and fast as a breath was gone. A river would appear down steep drops to the side and overgrown bus stops on unsuspecting bends in the road. They were symbolic really as the bus was not concerned by timetables and when and if it came, would stop anywhere for you which reminded us lovingly of Senegal.
On the night that Otto and Tamara’s friends arrived at the beach we were given an incredibly strong rum punch in a coconut prepared in the car boot of another friend that O+T had made some days before. It was strong enough for all of us, and after, we and the new arrivals and the rum punch dudes all went to Frifararen for a late night pizza party. There was some drama around one of the hitchhikers who needed a lift to the airport, his backpack which had been left at a bar that was now closed, and the guy who had offered the lift getting more and more stoned. In the end it all seemed to work out.
The food prices were upsetting, especially for vegetables. abottle of barefoot wine would have been 27 dollars, and one red pepper over 5! In the end we ended up in a supermarket called Good Dealz or something like that. It wasn’t good deals but surprisingly the New Zealand cheddar was the most affordable thing in the shops so we ate allot of that! The security guard was very friendly and horrified that we had just crossed the Atlantic. He helped us choose good rum to take home with and wished us luck.
On the 9th of February we and Frifararen checked out and got ready to leave for Martinique. At Duty free, both Otto and Niels were separately approached and asked if they would buy alcohol for them.
It seemed to be common place and the customs police were pretty suspicious of Niels even when he bought rum for us.
Barbados has been our first glimpse into the Caribbean. An independent island, a wealthy one too. Museums and monuments on the streets carry the shadows of slavery and colonialism and rebellion heavy on its back, reminding us that this island had been shaped by the sailors long before us.
The sail from Barbados to Martinique started around 3pm, we were a bit behind the others with preparing the boat, but the conditions were lovely to catch up which we did by the time night fell. It was a gorgeous afternoon, quite windy and a few patches of rain moved across the sky catching us only briefly. Some impressive double rainbows arched above us and I got some beautiful pictures of Frifa under the rainbow with the big moon hanging around nearby.
To the many many rainbows
Is it gold from the stories that glows?
Or the smile in the storm from which colours are born
And are gone as soon as the rain goes
Then we had a big gust of wind that tipped us a good bit to the side, a wave splashed in the bed and we caught a tuna all at the same time. The fish swam around the rudder of the windsteering just as we were pulling it in, and the blurred shape of some preditor came into view underneath it. Who’s dinner was it going to be?
Ours! After some concentration niels untanled it and got the tuna into our net. It turned out to be the biggest we had caught so far, a striped tuna. It was a big mission to fillet and fit into the fridge and by the time I was done nobody was hungry anymore so we would save it to share with the others tomorrow. That night i really felt that i wasnt ready to be sailing so soon since the crossing. I still felt as though we hadnt properly arrived and only 6 days later we were on the go again. It was a beautiful night though, laying in the cockpit watching the clouds racing over the moon, a halo of misty rainbow circling her head. I tried to take a photo but it was terrible of course.
We arrived much earlier than we’d thought, pretty soon after sunrise and the first and only thing to see was forest. Perfect. The bay was on the most southern point of the island and we were the only boats. As we got closer it was got shallow quickly which was creepy since the water was a very murky turquoise. After dropping the anchor we fell into bed before facing another island, another language, another challenge of landing land the dingy.
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