I managed to get a couple of pictures of the whale / whales although most of the pictures are just pale blobs under the water.

This is one on its side feeding – you can see the tail fin and the flipper at first we thought the tail fin was a killer whale dorsal fin, I have a whale and dolphin book which said that some whales feed like this and their tail are often mistaken for killer whale fins!

and these were on another day

Our fastest days of the crossing were all done with 3 reefs in the main and genoa so tiny sails.

Approaching Barbados

 

Port St Charles – the pontoon hasn't improved since our last visit – there was terrible surge moored on it to check in, we will anchor off and dinghy in when we check out.

 

It has rained at some point nearly every day since we arrived which isn't a bad thing – we have managed to wash the salt off the boat and its quite refreshing at times. We spent the first couple of days getting the boat sorted and mending things – one of the main sail sliders had broken, the rudder stock had been leaking and needed tightening up, we found a man who looked at the autopilot control panel which has a touch pad problem – unfortunately it cant be fixed and Steve dismantled the pole – which also cant be fixed but we salvaged the ends etc.

Broken main sail slider.                                 Rather sad looking pole!

 

We entered the round Barbados race before we got here and once here we went and registered etc however as the day approached the weather forecast wasn't looking good  strong winds squalls and big seas on the other side of the island , we decided not to beat the boat or ourselves up and the night before opted not to race ( we were going to do it with just the 2 of us which would have been a hard work even on a nice day!

The morning of the race

this would have been a short while after we started – squalls and heavy rain.

We were very glad that we decided not to start!

We have been snorkelling a few times – there are 5 or 6 wrecks in the bay some of which have a lot of fish around them.

We also took the bus to Welshman Hall Gully with the hope of seeing some monkeys – sadly we missed them but had a nice walk anyway.

View from top of Gully.                                          Lots of different trees with elaborate roots.

  

    

We did see lots of millipedes we also saw some hummingbirds in Bridgetown which made my day – they were too fast for us though and by the time we had tried to get a picture they had moved on.

The locals are friendly and helpful going out of their way to assist if you ask how to find somewhere or thing, we are however ready to move on now – the anchorage here is somewhat rolly and although initially it was fine after the Atlantic – we are both rather tired of it. Barbados is also an expensive island in many ways, places to visit seem to be priced for cruise ship visitors and food shopping is quite expensive – not only for us but for the locals, the choice is also quite disappointing – we are so spoilt in the UK being able to get such a great variety of food! The buses are cheap, every ride is $2 Barbadian (there are about 2.8 Barbadian $ to the pound). A lot of cruise ships visit Bridgetown, there are between 2 and 5 come into the cruise ship dock ever day during December to May, most people assume we are from a cruise ship, we  must have been asked if we want a taxi a few hundred times since we got here! Although we have had people from the cruise ships on local busses with us generally they are in another league when it comes to having money to spend!

Next we are heading for Bequia which is an overnight sail from here.