The Wild East

Bathsheba on the Barbados east coast is known as a surfer's paradise. The Atlantic swell breaks heavily on the coral reefs producing long if messy breaks. We took the $2 bus from Bridgetown and found our own small piece of paradise.

Bathsheba, Barbados

 Unlike the east coast, there is almost no development in Bathsheba - there was a single hut bar open and a handful of locals attempting to sell trinkets to the occasional tourist who found there way here by taxi or hire car.

Eating free coconuts off the beach

The kids soon realised that the beach was littered with coconuts and set about trying to open one. They were joined by a local 7 yr-old lad who spent a very happy couple of hours playing with Elizabeth - eating a coconut they had found, swinging off the palms and relaxing in the surf. He was impressed when James finally opened an edible coconut and even more impressed to be offered pieced of the apple and grapes from our lunch. He was a paragon of politeness, and always finished a sentence to me with "Miss", but seemed confused that we lived on a yacht, thinking we were instead on a ship. Elizabeth asked why he was so small.

Local lad Tilroy(?) swinging on palms

Elizabeth shows she can go one better

The geology is spectacular - the waves undercut the coral rocks, leaving vast mushroom shapes in the water and washing up the skeletal remains of ancient brain corals on the shore. The usual rock dwellers were there - rock and sand crabs, large chitons and periwinkles.

Chiton at Bathsheba - this one was about 60mm long

There was also the unwanted evidence of man - plastic litter strewn on the beaches, fishing gear hooked on rocks, drinks bottles and the smell of sewage from the idyllic-looking fringing grass. I'd have loved to swim out and explore the reef but didn't bring any kit.

Plastic litter among coral pebbles

Last night we had a pleasant meal in torrential rain under the sun awning of Croix des Gardes with Peter and Jo, but also Adrian and Jane from Bluebird - the boat we'd overtaken on our way here. They have taken a year off work and plan to spend some tie in Barbados for the wind-surfing. It also turned out that they have a close mutual friend with Dave and Ollie so the four of them spent the evening reminiscing and drinking rum.

We are planning a quiet day today pending tomorrow's overnight passage to Bequia, and are expecting Marie des Isles at 10pm tonight despite the lack of speed information from the tracker.