Barbados

Serenity of Swanwick
Phil and Sarah Tadd
Sun 17 Jan 2016 00:23
A week in Barbados and now we are ready to move on.
After clearing in on Monday we moved to the anchorage off Bridgetown, Carlisle Bay. I was amazed as we motored in not to touch bottom, and had to check with Sarah that it was deep enough. She confirmed 8.5 metres, you could see it as clear as anything, quite good really as you have to find the patches of sand amongst weed to put the anchor in.
We cleaned up from the crossing and put away the loose gear from on deck before having a sleep and then a quick trip ashore to find somewhere to eat or to buy some fresh veg. turned out to be the latter, from street vendors, their stalls are everywhere.
Tuesday we spent more time ashore as we had recovered a bit and also we were hosting dinner this evening so needed to shop a bit more seriously. Sarah was doing starter and sweet and Manise was providing the main course. We found two supermarkets with quite limited stock and again the veg came from the market stalls. First impression of the town and the supermarkets takes you back to 1960’s Britain if you ignore all the street sellers. It is possible and easiest to moor the dinghy in town, saves risking a beach landing with surf, and we could actually have brought Serenity up above the Careenage and moored right by Independence Square, cost about 50BD (£16) a night. The waterfront is touristy as you would expect and one street seems to cater for the cruise ship clientele but away from that you are into local shopping and life.
A good evening was spent on board eating, drinking and chatting.
Wednesday we had to get some laundry done so loaded up the dinghy and motored up to the Yacht Club landed on the beach slightly damp and then went and got our free weeks membership then went across the road to the laundry and left a large bag load. Back to the Yacht club for a coffee, Maxwell House with evaporated milk! in a very colonial setting.
Yesterday we managed to hire a car and had look round some of the island, the holiday maker orientated south, the rugged east and Welchman's Gully an insight into the local flora as it would have  been  prior to the deforestation and plantations.
Today we have ‘cleared out’ for St Lucia a matter of visiting three offices and filling in forms in triplicate and paying 100 BD. So now we are ready to leave.

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