Barbados is everything we thought back home the Caribbean would be! There are beautiful sandy beaches, nice restaurants and shops, and the most friendly, smiling, and courteous people we have met in the Caribbean.

We don’t feel unsafe anywhere, and Henrik has never been to a place where so many people thinks he’s funny! People from Barbados also seem like a very proud people. They are proud of being a Bajan and proud of their island.

Super Yacht Service
Besides a couple of days at anchor we’ve been in the marina at Port St. Charles all week. The marina is mainly for super yachts and apparently they don’t need such trivialities as toilets and showers, so instead they have let us use facilities at the Yacht Club. We have however made use of the super yacht service of the marina. We asked at the marina office for a place to do laundry, and they told us that they had a super yacht service that we could use. We accepted right away, since that probably is the closest we’ll ever come to owning a super yacht!

Sightseeing
Since we had to collect our passports and US visas anyway, we made the most of it and rented a car and went sightseeing. We don’t do it very often, but it was a great experience.

Among other things, we went to see the Concorde museum. Of the 14 Concordes built, one of them is exhibited in Barbados, since Barbados was one of the Concorde’s only four regular destinations. That tells you something about the tourist clientele of Barbados!

Beside the Concorde, we also visited the first and oldest rum distillery in the world: When we arrived, we were served a glass of delicious rum punch. I asked for the recipe, but the only thing they told me was: “1 sour,
2 sweet, 3 strong, 4 week”. I’ve bought a bottle of Mount Gay Rum, so now I just need to experiment!

The Mount Gay Rum Distillery. Mount Gay has a close involvement with sailing, which they explained with the fact that seafarers from Europe brought back barrels of rum as an evidence that they had been to the Caribbean. When they arrived in Europe, they found out that the rum tasted better at arrival than departure, and from that they got the idea of maturing the rum.

You can’t sell Mount Gay rum without a licence, and in Barbados there are 12.000 licences! So you can get your local rum everywhere. Mount Gay rum is also known for its red caps, which you can only get by participating in one of their sponsored regattas. They are at a premium amongst sailors!

A fly in the ointment
In the middle of our ardour for Barbados, we have unfortunately found cockroaches in one of the cupboards…

We have caught one large one and several smaller ones that we assume are baby cockroaches. We have washed everything down and put up traps everywhere, so we hope that will help. We think we only have a few, even though it is said that once you see one, you have a lot. I am better at accepting the fact that we have bugs on board, though, than I had expected. Back home I assured Henrik that if we ever got bugs on board I would instantly move into a hotel until the problem was solved, but I guess that cruising life has hardened me!