Whoa! We're Going To Barbados!

The above line from the 70s hit — was it considered a novelty or not, who knows — Barbados by Typically Tropical makes you think of the sunny Caribbean Sea, lustrous green vegetation fringed by white sandy beaches, all set in the shimmering and sparkling turquoise ocean.

Trust me, as a teenager, I couldn’t wait to leave my footprints on the pristine sand. It was dreamy. I pictured steel drums, limbo dancing and rum punches, along with bright colours.

I conjured up in my mind an exotic allure so strong that I knew I would not be able to stay away forever.

The colours are now faded, as it has taken fifty years for me to follow in the vapour trail of Coconut Airways, flight 372 to Bridgetown, but Captain Tobias Willcock’s words lived on through all of those years.

Of course, the colours haven’t actually faded, but my perception of them has. To show it was of his time he asks that passengers refrain from smoking until after the aircraft is airborne.

Can you imagine flying ten hours or more in a constricting fog of exhaled tobacco smoke, all contained in a metal tube? I even think that the most ardent smokers in the world would struggle in such an atmosphere.

“Land ahoy,” you could imagine the lookout of the day shouting from his or her eyrie, formerly known as the crow’s nest, high above the deck, as the blue-green tinge of the island rose above the horizon.

I’m not sure it happens like that these days. Even Maps on our phones gave us our exact position during the approach to Queen Victoria’s mooring at the pier, so it shouldn’t be a surprise any longer.

It had seemed like a long time at sea — six days — so who knows what weeks or months might have felt like to sailors all those years ago.

One thing is for sure, though: they would not have been accompanied by the constant hum of air conditioning.

I am probably the most anti-air-cooling person in the world and, unless the temperature hits around 35°, I don’t see the point. It strikes me that many people’s thermostats are failing to work correctly.

This is more on point on a cruise, when the age demographic is higher than the general population.

I was excited beyond measure. In the scientific way of these things, the three levels of excitement are: very excited, pretty excited or not too excited.

Well, in my opinion, my excitement could not be contained to such a limiting spectrum.
If very excited was as high as it gets, mine was truly stratospheric, off the scale. The word excitement would be prefixed by an infinite number of “verys”.

Who actually researches this stuff?

The first thing that hit us — apart from the glorious warmth on our faces — was the overwhelming friendliness of Barbadians going about their everyday business.

Even the young lady handing out port maps did it with such a huge smile on her face that you could not feel anything but welcome. Sunny and happy, all in one.

To start with we needed to acquaint ourselves with the immediate port area.
We were accosted by tour hawkers of all shapes and sizes, all offering us the best experience of our lives.

Once again, every rebuttal handed out by us was greeted with a warm smile and a friendly wave — albeit dismissively — from the vendors.

Our immediate thought was cash.

A word, if I may: there are many currencies at play in the Caribbean. We would come across Barbadian Dollars, Eastern Caribbean Dollars — by far the most extensive — Caribbean Guilders and Aruban Florins.

Don’t worry, though, everyone seems to accept US Dollars.

We were warned that if we elected to use the Yankee Dollar in the land of rum and Coca-Cola, we must expect the change to be in local tender.

This was, 100%, not the case. Indeed, when we paid with local bills, the change was given in US.

I’m not saying it is like that all the time, but that was our experience.

You only need, really, to load your wallets with a stash of greenbacks and, generally, it is worth buying them before you leave your home port. Not all ATMs dish out anything other than their own notes.

We wandered along to Independence Square, nowadays overseen by a statue of the man considered to be the Father of Independence and, therefore, of Barbados itself — Errol Barrow.

The former World War II flying officer returned home to take up a role in politics and he was most keen on self-determination.

The big question was: what would this look like?

Initially, the country chose independence from the mother country, the colonial master — the United Kingdom.

It was only in 2021 that it opted to become a fully fledged republic, cutting all apron strings.

Errol Barrow and the Road to Independence

All Caribbean islands appear to be split on membership of the Commonwealth. Some residents believe continuing belonging would afford them more protection during times of crisis, whilst others are adamant that self-governance is the only way forward.

We all know our Royal Navy is designed to protect all of our assets worldwide, don’t we?

Barrow was a truly incredible and driven man.

At the age of 22 he left the relative comfort of his tropical island to answer the call to fight the Nazi foe. He joined the RAF and soon qualified as a navigator.

He was well thought of by his crew as being unflappable in times of crisis, which were not in short supply.

He flew with 88 Squadron on many sorties over enemy territory, always getting the bomber there and, equally as important, getting it back again.

He stayed in the RAF until 1947 before attending the London School of Economics.

In 1950 he returned home to Barbados and practised as a lawyer before entering politics.

He was to go on and found the Democratic Labour Party, becoming Premier in 1961 and immediately campaigning for independence.

He also brought about free secondary education as well as free healthcare for all. Independence was granted in 1966. What a man.

Errol Barrow Day is celebrated every year on his birthday, 21 January, and is fittingly now a public holiday.

Island History and Exploring Barbados

As we were wandering around Independence Square we were approached by a taxi driver.

Shall we be kind and say he was quite advanced in years — probably even older than me — who offered to take us on a tour of the island for Barbadian $300.

Don’t be afraid to haggle. We only had 200 in our pocket anyway, so that’s what he did it for.

As we sat in the evening reflecting on our day, we felt we got the price about right.

First of all, he asked if we wanted the air running or not. I certainly didn’t need a second invitation. The windows will do just fine.

As we pulled away from the square, Hal — that was his name — informed us that when the English laid claim to the place in the 1620s it was uninhabited. No battles fought, no blood spilled, just stroll ashore.

Over the years, from about 1600 BC, peoples indigenous to the area would visit but it is thought they never really stayed for very long.

The Portuguese spotted the place in the mid-1500s and laid claim to Isla del Barbado — Island of the Bearded Man.

In the end, though, they vacated the place when they failed to find a suitable water source.
Up popped the English with their advanced civil engineering prowess.

What shall we do about the lack of water, though? There are no visible springs or rivers.
One cunning chap thought it a good idea to bore into the ground. After all, the water had to be somewhere — one hell of a lot fell each year.

This theory proved successful and, indeed, some of the aquifers established in the 17th century are still providing plentiful drinking water to the population to this day. Keep it simple.

The name Barbados was established by the Spanish, as they thought the fruits of the bearded fig trees prevalent on the island looked like bearded men. Keep it simple.

Hal drove us through different parts of the capital to start with.

It is quite incongruous how you have a run of super-modern hotels with a small residential home sandwiched between them.

The international hotel chains converged on the island, buying up acres of land for their plush resorts, but some residents refused to sell.

For some reason they seem to quite like living next to mini-skyscrapers.

Not for me. I think I would be going cap in hand and seeing if they might like to take on my property. I do wonder, however, if that ship has already sailed.

Barbadians are really proud of their singing diva, Rihanna, and justifiably so. Our tour took us past her childhood home as well as her current home. The contrast is really quite stark. She even has roads named in her honour. And why not?

Some of the properties on display in the St James part of the capital were stunningly stupendous.

Talk about Millionaires’ Acres — probably more like Billionaires’ in this day and age. It was a far cry from anything I have ever seen before.

Modern mansions set in huge landscaped gardens, all with manicured lawns, some even boasting their own mooring points for the obligatory superyacht.

Jane spotted a cheeky monkey sitting atop a boundary wall, chomping on some fruit — no doubt nicked from someone’s private orchard.

Despite Hal’s claim that the Vervet (Green) Monkey is native to the island, they are not.
They were transported from West Africa — Senegal and Gambia — over 350 years ago as pets.

Both the free and slave population used to keep them as pets.

Dogs and cats are now the more favoured domestic animals around the place and it is claimed in some quarters that the estimated 14,000 monkeys are now considered a pest.
They are entertaining little chaps and, to me at any rate, it doesn’t seem right that they be thinned out because they take the occasional piece of fruit.

On the other hand, I don’t suppose it is my farms they are invading.

Our main goal for the day was to get to St Nicholas Abbey and Rum Distillery.

When we arrived at the gates, though, the crowds milling around were like you would find outside Wembley on Cup Final day.

Sometimes you just have to accept that you are beaten and call it a day.

Unlike many of its neighbours, Barbados does not have any really tall hills, but the entrance to the Abbey is situated at one of the highest points in the country.

We wandered about a little, took some pictures and watched in dismay as even more busloads turned up to swell the queues waiting to get in.

Shortly after establishing a colony on the island the English planted its first cash crop.
Not sugar cane, as you might think, but tobacco.

Its success didn’t last very long as a better strain was soon being grown in another colony a little further north of here — Virginia and other settlements around Chesapeake Bay.

It wasn’t long before Barbadians realised the way forward was King Sugar and nearly every square metre of land was planted with this in-demand commodity.

As Europe developed more efficient ways of extracting sugar from beet, the cost of producing cane sugar proved too expensive so far from home. Even with free or indentured labour, demand slowed.

The island’s soil was not good enough to grow many modern crops so, even to this day, many fields now lie fallow, only covered in wild scrub and bush.

As we toured around, many hilltops showed the ruins of old windmills used for the extraction of liquid sugar — molasses — now forlorn reminders of days, good and bad, gone by.

In my mind they are all monuments to the slaves that used to work the land.

Having read the history of the sugar industry I was quite shocked to learn that every mill would have a sharpened axe hanging near the machinery.

The reason is simple. It was much quicker to cut the limb off a worker should it become entangled in the rollers than stop the process.

It made my mind jump to the effect that sugar still has on the amputation of human legs and arms in modern times. Now, though, the main reason for sugar-related dismembering is as a result of diabetes — the horrendous side effect of too much consumption of the crop which fuelled the British Empire.

Amazing how, after all these years, sugar is continuing to leave its mark as one of the causes of obesity.

The country is divided into eleven administrative areas, known as parishes, all of which are named for saints.

Only one, however — St Lucy — is named for a woman.

How appropriate from my point of view: she is the patron saint of the blind.

Many terms related to lighting such as lux, lumens and illumination are derived from her name.

This takes us rather nicely back to the start, for this is the parish in which Errol Barrow was born.

I think it is quite safe to say that he saw the light and followed its path.

Finally, you can’t visit Barbados — or any tropical island for that matter — without checking out the beaches.

Brandon’s Beach was pretty close to our berth, so we toddled off there.

It is still within easy reach of the capital’s city centre and is most definitely wonderful.
Sometimes excitement makes you quite breathless, doesn’t it?

This was one such time.

Steel drums played, barbecues cooked, children played and sunbathers — well — baked.
We didn’t linger but walked along the edge of the surf.

It was sort of like Holkham, except a few degrees warmer.

Paddling was the name of the game. Jane removed her shoes. I didn’t.

She dipped her toes in the warm water — nearly as hot as we have a bath at home.

I trod a path around five metres from where the wavelets were breaking on the sand which, incidentally, was that real powdery stuff.

Then, without warning, a shin-splintering tsunami would arrive out of nowhere to soak my new deck shoes.

It took days to dry them out and, by the time we returned to the ship, my heel was covered in blood as the salt-encrusted insides grated my skin.

Never mind, soldier on. Worse things happen at sea.

Just before I finish, it is striking how many cars there are on the roads.

Given the island is 21 miles north to south, 14 west to east and takes up 166 square miles of the planet’s surface, it boasts around 100,000 cars.

I am not necessarily sure this is high or not, but it sounds like it to me — giving a density of 602 per square mile.

Next time, we will move on to St Lucia.