Barbados has always held a sort of exotic allure for me. I can remember wanting to visit there as early as 7th grade. I imagined it to be a place where people dressed in brilliant colors, ate tropical and spicy food, and where you could walk on a powder white sand beach. Let's just say that the island did not disappoint.
The port where our ship was docked could be misleading, as it looks rather ordinary. From our balcony we could not really make out much of the island, but I knew we were in for a good day when I spied a rainbow cresting over a ship out the window.
We had an excursion through the cruise line for noon, so I wanted to get out early to explore the island before we had to be back. Tony and I walked into town a ways, took a few pictures, and of course did a little shopping. There were some beautiful carved wood items, particularly these gorgeous mahogany turtles, but they were quite pricey, with one life sized one running over $400 US dollars, so we settled on an oddly curved spoon made by an older guy selling stuff out of his workshop. I tried to buy souvenir items on this trip that would have some decorative purpose in our new house, and not just be complete junk.
On the way back to the cruise ship, Tony stopped to look at some shirts that a street vendor was selling. He bought one, and the lady ended up talking him into having MY hair braided. The lady thought she was going to braid all of my hair, but after awhile I was kind of tired of sitting there, and we were getting short on time so we left.
Our excursion was on a Tiami catamaran painted yellow, white and blue and crewed by a friendly bunch who seemed to truly enjoy what they do. (Who wouldn't?) The ship moves at a leisurely pace along the coast, making it's first stop in waters where sea turtles are known to inhabit.
Every willing person off loads into the water, vying for space near the crew member holding the bait, since he seemed to give you the best chance to see the turtles. It didn't seem to take more than a minute or two before we had beautiful sea turtles swimming in and out amongst the thrilled tourists. I expected them to be skittish, but the turtles would come right up to you, weaving in and out of swimmers legs. It was amazing to be in turquoise water, with the sun shining and turtles making your acquaintance.
After swimming with the turtles, the crew took us to another location, where we were able to swim from the boat to the beach. It was an absolutely beautiful location. Turquoise and indigo blue water, fine powdery sand, flowers, and sailboats in the water.
I could have stayed there for the rest of the trip. In fact I was the last person on the beach and one of the last people to board the catamaran. I was collecting sea glass and a few little shells from the water. (Sea glass, for those who don’t know is just regular bits of glass that have been polished down by the waves and sand. I love the turquoise glass, but it is the hardest to find. Green is a lot easier.) I really would have liked another hour, but we had a ship to catch. I would definitely go back to Barbados and spend a week. That night were just too worn out to go to the main dining room and wait to be served our meal, so instead we had the buffet on the Lido deck. After eating and relaxing a bit in our room, we went to the theater and played a marriage game with our cruise director, “Wee Jimmy.” He’s a short, somewhat portly Scottish guy, who spent have the cruise in a kilt, and the other half putting up with people trying to correct his pronunciations of English words. He was pretty funny, and took everything in stride. We also watched a magic act and a comedian, rounding out a practically perfect day.
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