Over Christmas, I went back home to Barbados, with my parents, for a two week vacation. It was an excellent vacation (it felt much longer than two weeks by the end), but it was also a very interesting vacation that included late plane flights, a catamaran, 35 knot winds, turtles and 6 GB of photos.
Out to Barbados
I rolled out of work around 13:00 on a Tuesday, nipped over to Currys to pick up my new MP3 player (a SanDisk Sansa Clip), acquired food (KFC if it matters, bringing the number of times I’ve eaten there in 2008 to 2), grabbed my bags and rolled north up the M1. About half-way, I realised that I’d left my toiletries bag behind, shrugged and kept on rolling. Arrived at my parents late in the afternoon, changed cars and we headed to the hotel – right on Manchester airport as it happens.
Hungry Sparrow
Had a celebratory dinner, hit the sack and the next thing I knew it was Wednesday morning. One shuttle bus to the airport, checked in and found some breakfast. Mum and Dad browsed in Dixons for some new headphones to shut the plane noise out with – I had purchased some Bose Quiet Comfort 3s the week before, and they had arrived just in time for me to charge the battery. We ended up using my phone’s Internet connection to determine which of the headphones on sale were worth the money; I really love that feature. Then we found out that the plane was going to be at least an hour late (something about a sick crew member, though they didn’t annouce that over the speaker), so we sat around in the departure lounge. Sent a few e-mails to various people in Barbados to let them know that we were running late; another useful feature.
After a rather long flight (almost 9 hours going out to Barbados), we arrived, and blew through Immigration – there are distinct benefits to holding dual passports; I’m Barbadian when flying into Barbados, and British when flying into England. Picked up our bags, met Gran and Grandad and Jutta outside, and sent Dad onward with Grandad while Mum and I filled in the paperwork for the rental car and my temporary driving license ($10 for 3 months).
Barbados
Palm Trees
Up until Sunday, we relaxed at the apartment, watched the birds and rain, got banking and insurance errands taken care of (so much easier when you’re in the country [and the banking is even easier when your mother and the assistant branch manager are on first-name terms]), and I hung out with some friends on Saturday night (and truth be told, if I didn’t have an early flight out, I would have been there well past midnight). We also paid a visit to Flower Forest – it used to be the family business and has now been bought by the man who runs Earthworks Potteries; we took a walk around (my goodness the trees have matured) and gave him some feedback on what we thought he should do (including shutting down some of the branch paths for the immediate future) to make it a thriving business again.
Sunday morning we rolled down to the airport, and checked in for our LIAT flight to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Check-in took an hour, and then LIAT delayed for over an hour due to staffing issues.
St. Vincent
Oh yes, a point of note. We were going to be chartering a 36 foot monohull (Mugari) for the week; however, the people chartering her the week before ran her aground on a reef at ten in the morning, and the boat that salvaged them managed to pull Mugari off the wrong way, and snapped the rudder clean off, damaged the rudder shaft, and let the rudder float away. We therefore ended up on a 6 ton, 40 foot Lavezzi catamaran called Tight Five, though at no extra cost to us – well, no cost in cash at least.
Once we cleared St. Vincent’s Immigration and Customs (which are both in a room that’s not more than 60 feet long and 30 feet wide, complete with conveyor for the baggage), we hopped into Phyllis’ Taxi (driven by someone we know, namely Phyllis), waited about 20 minutes for another lot of people (who ended up in a different taxi in the end), and headed off to Barefoot Charters. After a bit more waiting around (they wanted to give the chart briefings to several crews at once), the cat was brought around to the dock, and we loaded on our bags – I went with the cat back to the mooring while more briefing was being done, and tried to catch a few winks of sleep. Some more waiting, and the boatboys showed up to sail her out through the channel in the reef that protects Blue Lagoon. The channel is dredged to just the right depth to allow the cruising yachts out, and is barely 30 feet wide (and Tight Five is 20 feet wide).
Blue Lagoon, St. Vincent
Here starts the drama of the vacation – the guys didn’t tie the dinghy on tight enough, and as we were moving off the mooring to go out via the cut, the dinghy went adrift. Luckily, someone on shore noticed, so we made a quick about-turn to go and pick it up. Once we were out of the cut and into the bay, we put the jib up, and the dockhands hopped off, turning the boat over to us. We set course for Bequia, and crossed a remarkably peaceful Bequia Channel; a nine mile channel between St. Vincent and Bequia that the entire Atlantic Ocean tries to get through, thus accentuating the ocean swells and a decent current (5+ knots). We did notice, however, that a 40 foot catamaran doesn’t surf down-wave as well as the 40 foot monohull that we used to bring across from Barbados; the reasons are probably numerous, but one of the main problems was a lack of control due to the tiny rudders.