December 31 - Bridgetown, Barbados

Weather

– 28º, sunny with some clouds,
hardly humid at all…perfect

Steps – 10,443

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM BARBADOS!!

This morning was one of the loveliest mornings to sail into port. Our side of the boat was in shade, and the temperature was just about perfect. That is until we actually docked. We had to turn so that our side of the boat

coconut sellers

was in full sun while we docked. Once we paralleled parked between 2 other cruise ships, I was back into shade. It’s fascinating how these huge cruise ships can parallel park between other huge ships. 

St John's Cemetery

I stayed out on the balcony until I realized that I wasn’t alone. I heard her, before I could see her. Once I laid eyes on her I nearly killed her (by accident of course), she was camouflaged into the balcony’s wood floor. My sail-in companion was a cricket, and she was big…I’d say about 2 inches. Between Chris and I, I am the insect wrangler (he deals with vermin) …I don’t mind them until they are this big. I watched her until I was confident, I could get back in the balcony alone. Once I saw safely on the other side of the glass door, I watched and watched. We hoped she would be gone by the time we got back from the tour, nope…Chris scooped her up and flicked her off our balcony, and he doesn’t like bugs!

Bathsheba beach

The water in Barbados is very, very blue. Ocean water is typically blue (unless you are in the Amazon), but this water…WOW!

Bathsheba beach

This is our first time in Barbados, so I added one to the countries visited list today – we’re up to 76!

Tours have been departing at very reasonable times this cruise. My recollection is that in the past, we’ve had to be up early every morning. Today’s tour met at 10:30, which meant time for the gym and a bit of a linger on the balcony. We were

St John's Church

tempted by caviar Sunday, but we passed – maybe we’re spoiled?? One benefit of early tours is that they usually get you back for lunch. There’s ALWAYS food available any time…always room service, and the ‘pool grill’ until 4PM. We always like to find food in town, but due to where the ship is docked this usually isn’t possible.

Barbados is the most easterly Caribbean island in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies. We are docked atBridgetown (pop.110,000) the capital and largest city. Despite being in the Caribbean, Barbados rarely sees hurricanes.

Our tour today was mostly panoramic – driving around the island stopping here

Bathsheba beach

and there. These kinds of tours aren’t usually our scene, but today’s was good.

First stop was at a botanical garden, but we didn’t actually visit the garden. We had a rum punch, used the facilities, and watched monkeys for about half an hour. I was a bit puzzled by this being our first stop, seemed better suited to being at least second, but it was fine. The monkeys kept their distance…I didn’t feed any, nor did any hop on my back.

Second stop was at St. John’s Parish Church, a Gothic-style building from 1836 perched above the ocean. This was a short, but cool stop to check out the

sail-in friend

church and cemetery.

poinsettia

Our last stop is the beach at Bathsheba - a fishing village on the eastern shore. There are super cool rock formations in the water and quite large waves surfers were trying out.

Between these 3 stops we saw much of the island. Barbados is HILLY – not as hilly as some other islands we’ve visited, but we were up and down A LOT. The roads are pretty basic, so no usual coach busses…these were again the smaller Caribbean buses – today not packed, so we had room to spread out. Susan our guide narrated the entire trip with interesting information, including much about plants and trees we passed. One interesting tree was the poinsettia tree – pretty big, definitely not like the

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

small things we get at home at Christmas.

Frangipani tree

We also saw where Rhianna grew up and now lives…different places for sure.

A port beer was not to be for us…once again the port area was pretty industrial, so getting out was possible, but not at all convenient. Plus…it was a Sunday and New Year’s Eve so little was going on.

The evening was pretty fun. Pre-dinner entertainment, dinner, post dinner show, pre-countdown party, countdown party.