A catamaran day in Barbados
November 8: Today’s port was Bridgetown, Barbados. Deciding what to do here was tough – as much as I wanted to explore some of the country’s history and architecture in particular, Cathy found a catamaran tour that including snorkeling with turtles. Snorkeling with turtles was on the Bucket List, so the rest will have to wait for a future visit 🙂
Sunrise, shot at 06:07 as we neared the Bridgetown cruise port, which is about a mile from the heart of town.
The freighter Stadt Munchen had sailed from Sint Maarten just before us, and half an hour after our arrival at Bridgetown, she docked at the container port across from us.
Free shuttle buses were running from the ship to the terminal but we chose to walk (it’s a little less than a mile). It was 87° but we seem to be getting somewhat acclimatized to the heat. The walk also provided this great view of the Noordam as well as a tug and pilot boat.
The cruise terminal is very nice, with lots of space and lots of shops. At 09:30 a taxi-van picked 6 of us up and we headed north, away from Bridgetown. Along the way we picked up a couple of independent travellers at a hotel.
A beautiful boat pulled into a beautiful beach to meet us – the day was looking great! We’d heard good reports about the tours offered by Shasa Catamaran Cruises, and at $80 US each for 5 hours including lunch it seemed to offer good value.
I actually took very few photos today. To start with, I was in the water for much of it. I had also somehow forgotten my digital underwater camera at home – although I bought a disposable underwater camera for the turtle swim, those 27 images were quickly used up (I won’t see them until we get back to Miami). These fellows, though, were definitely worthy of a photo 🙂
[Edit: here’s one photo of the turtle swim – results were quite disappointing]
This is one of the nicest developments we saw along the beach, but there were many mansions hidden by greenery. Some of the mansions we passed are apparently worth over $100 million.
This boat motored out of a well-hidden marina right beside the home above.
What a day! Our 20-minute swim with the turtles was amazing. There was about 1 turtle per person, they swam all around and among us and you could reach out and touch them. I hope to have some decent photos on the film camera. We then moved and did some snorkeling along an artificial reef – there were lots of fish but little life on the reef itself. I small natural reef beside it had been wiped clean of life by Tomas. In this photo the captain, Jason, is setting up some more shade for our lunch break.
Wow, what a lunch spread! We had met Jason’s wife, Tess, on the beach and she’d brought a couple of large coOlers that were now emptied. Chicken, fried flying fish, potato salad, green salad, garlic bread and more were spread out. Add to that the beer, rum punch, water and sodas that had been served (at no charge) since we got aboard, and it wasn’t unlike being on a cruise ship 🙂
All too soon, it was time to head back to the ship. Rather than pound through fairly heavy south swells back to where we’d been picked up, Jason had the taxi pick us up near our lunch anchor. As we returned to the cruise dock, we could tell when we were in a different district by the change in the uniform colours of the students along the road.
Sailing away from Bridgetown, Barbados, at 5:09 pm. This was our best day yet – although we didn’t see much of the island, what we did see is truly the Caribbean at its finest. At dinner tonight, we were surprised to hear that none of our 4 tablemates had gone past the cruise terminal. Different strokes, I suppose….
Tomorrow is the day that’s been #1 on my list of ports I’m looking forward to – Martinique.
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