Well… the plan was not to spend Christmas in Barbados… but I am so seldom in control of my own life. The universe keeps pushing me here and there and I must resign myself to my own limited control and flow with the river huh…? I make plans and kind of sit back and watch how life will actually unfold.
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Barbados
So Barbados… We have been here a bit over a week now. I have been thinking about the question.. so what is Barbados like…? My traveler friends tell me the joy of traveling is learning new cultures and seeing how people live in different places. I can say that the British influence in strong in their culture here. Also they seem to be very religious. They have only one TV station here and it seems every time I turn it on there is something religious on, lots of praise Jesus stuff. So there seems to be a mix of the old British Victorian moral code still embedded into their culture here.
The local people are always rather well dressed and sort of prim and proper in the way they conduct life. Remember my story from the last blog about how offended the immigration lady was about my clothes. They also wear a lot of jewellery here, many of the women have their nails done long. Everyone wears nice clothes despite the heat.
We found this guy in the local farmers market. I was so amazed at how long his hair is I asked him if I could take a picture, to which he was happy to oblige me. Check this out.. the guy’s hair is braided and still comes down below his knees… !!! like wow that is so Awesome..! Goodness I wish I could have hair that long. I love having long hair… but this salty ocean air and my poor sailor bum hygiene standards have frizzed out and destroyed my hair… Lexi sad.. 🙁
What has actually struck me the most about the Barbados culture… the thing that hits you pretty quickly… jumps out at you and is hard to miss…. is they are so very kind in their spirit and so polite in their mannerisms. I have not met a single native who was unkind or not nice. You could literally approach any stranger on the street and ask for help and be greeted kindly.
And not just polite indifference either… they are genuinely interested in you and usually any of them would help you. Just kindness in their souls above and beyond what you might expect. The security guard at the yacht club last week, Damian, was so amazingly kind to us for no particular reason. He helped us fix our cell phone SIM data problem just because he thought he could. He let us land our dinghy on “their” yacht club beach and he kept the beach gate open for us when we were picking up our repaired genny sail and had to lug it to our dinghy. He didn’t have to show such kindness… there was nothing in it for his benefit… I think helpful kindness is just the core of his culture.
I LOVE the people of Barbados and I can see why it is such a popular tourist destination. Nice beaches and a safe stable well regulated society with super kind local inhabitants. I think Barbados is wonderful to visit by plane or Cruise ship, I still maintain you should NOT visit here by cruising yacht. Carlisle bay is just so freakin rolly. We have been rolling for more than a week now. It makes it hard to sleep and hard to live comfortably. To be honest we can’t wait to get out of here just to find a calm anchorage somewhere in Grenada.
We did however find the only place you can safely land your dinghy to get access to shore. If you go up the canal to the inside there are power boats in there and a few yachts med moored to the public boardwalk. These are the only boats not rockin and rolling now.
Actually the roll is so bad… that this morning as I was sitting at the Nav desk working on YouTube videos for you guys, with my headphones on, I suddenly heard a loud crash sound and the yacht vibrated by an impact. I feared we had collided with another yacht nearby. I ran up to discover that one side of our dinghy davit ropes had failed on the port side and the dinghy was dangling by the other rope on the starboard side. I was able to drop the dinghy into the water and there is no damage. The failure analysis revealed that apparently… it is so freakin rolly in this bay… that the screw in pin for the block shackle unscrewed itself…! Yep… how rolly does it have to be for a shackle to unscrew itself..? apparently the answer is Barbados rolly.
On shore Barbados is a lovely place. We dinghied into shore on Monday to go explore around. Elena wanted to buy herself a SIM card and I needed to put minutes onto my local SIM card. As we walked around the old streets in the market place I was starting to get overwhelmed by the crowds. We live a rather lonely solitary life on the boat, often in deserted tucked away places, often do not get off the boat for a week at a time, so I am not used to crowds of people. You can see me in the market here standing to the side trying not to get swept away.
Elena loves fresh fruits and veggies and she is always on the lookout for anything exotic or new. Some new weird fruit she has never seen before just delights her. So we found our way into a local farmers market so Elena could explore. She did find this bottle of concentrated Sorel juice she bought. It tastes a lot like beet juice but this stuff is supposed to be super healthy and full of anti-oxidants and vitamins.
She also bought some fruits and veggies. What is interesting is that the prices are very high here. As you can imagine its a limestone island with sandy soil so they do not grow very much on their own. Everything is imported and heavily taxed. The exchange rate on the Barbados dollar is about 2 Barbados dollars equals 1 US dollar to give you an idea about the exchange rate. I think grapes were like $10 per pound and oranges were $7 per pound.
On the walk back to the canal to find our dinghy we noticed this great Christmas tree exhibit in the public square. It seems they had Christmas trees setup decorated from all over the world, sort of showing the way different cultures decorate their trees. It has been the most Christmas’ey thing we have encountered for us sailor girls. It was kind of cool though, like a welcoming gift from the locals to the tourists.
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Religion Hates Homosexuals
As we were walking in the local farmers market we came across these signs written by a local vendor. They kind of seemed humorous at first, then we found this one. I just stared at it for a while then decided I just had to grab a camera and take a picture for you. In Canada we have no problem with accepting people as they are so this idea of hating people for their sexual orientation is quite foreign to me. Much like the prevalent racism in the States and Dominican Republic is surprising to me. I am just not used to it.
What makes it amusing to locals is that they know Gays are bad, its embedded in their culture. They are super religious here and they are indoctrinated with the idea that God hates Gay people the most. This is the thing about this place, the church still has a pretty good hold on them and the church hates Gay people. All love and kindness and forgiveness for human beings… except those gays… they are clearly such a danger to their social fabric the penalty for getting caught as a homosexual here is life imprisonment…. ! How crazy is that..?
So as were standing there admiring the Christmas tree display I noticed these lesbians walking around in public holding hands. I really admired their courage. They are so confident and proud of their love for each other they would risk life imprisonment on this island over their right to hold hands in public. Many of the local people were staring at them in disapproval and a bit of shock. I thought… you go sisters… be the best you that you can be… and at the same time… holy crap I really hope they don’t get arrested for that.
Barbados really should be ashamed that they have codified this religious view point into political law, they should get with the modern world and change their laws… but in the mean time, gay people should avoid this place. This whole idea just surprises me, it fascinates me, it is like going back in time to olden days of ignorance. Canada has been past this sort of petty stuff for so many decades now I have never known of its existence in the world until I came here.
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Travel Plans
Well… the future for WildChild is uncertain right now. With Elena’s US Visa denial it presents us with a huge problem.
For the immediate future.. we look to the weather forecasts.
This week we are firmly gripped in the Christmas winds down here. The Ocean is 3 meter waves and the winds are steady above 20 knots. Carlisle bay is so rolly that Elena and I really just want to get out of here.
We could have left last weekend but it would have been another 10 foot waves hard kind of sail. We have both decided that we have had enough of nasty sailing for a while. We just do not feel like taking the beating anymore. Its a visceral thing.
So we cannot get out of here before next weekend. Right now the outside ocean winds and waves are bad but by Friday the winds will completely die off. This will deplete the energy out of the waves and they will begin to abate. As they settle down they will mellow out and become more swelly than wavy.. which is great.
By Saturday the waves will be down to 4-5 footers with a really long open dominant wave period, swelly not wavy. Which is good to sail in and fabulous to run downwind thru. Saturday the wind will also start to pick back up again and even swing around a little from the NE giving us a great running wind too.
So the big plan is to leave Barbados by around noon on Saturday and we should arrive in Grenada by the afternoon on Sunday. My secret plan is that it will be an easy lovely sail and not a sporty one.
From there WildChild will be spending the month of January in Grenada. It is not a huge island but we will coastal explore at a very leisurely pace. Time for some easy sailing and a stress free lifestyle.
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Problems on the Boat
Elena informed me a week ago, just after her US visa denial, that she has a friend in India who is getting married at the end of January. Elena wants to go the wedding. When we had crew problems in Culebra Elena promised not to abandon the boat, she would stick with WildChild until I could get WildChild back safely to Florida… BUT… she is not allowed back into the US by private boat. She cannot accompany WildChild back into Puerto Rico or into Florida.
During one of her mood swings the other day Elena informed me that she is going to that wedding in India whether I like it or not, with or without my approval. She is going to abandon the boat. So this will leave me alone on the boat again and in a very bad position. I choose not to sail WildChild alone, I CAN do it.. but it is so hard I do not want to do it.
I am very determined to bring WildChild home to Canada but at this point I am unsure of how I will accomplish this mission.
I need help.
Captain Lexi…
. ….. the lost again…
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