Chasing Summer –

November 14th

After 7 days at sea crossing the Atlantic, I was thrilled to be able to get off the ship and onto land. Not as excited as Paul, who kissed the ground upon debarkation but excited nonetheless.

I had made it a personal challenge to get a picture of all the sunrises on the journey so far, and with time changes and lack of data, some days, it was hard to predict when exactly I needed to get up.

This morning was one of those days. I usually turn on the aft camera when I start to wake up to see if it’s still dark, and at 5 a.m., when I turned it on, it was, so I kept dozing.

At 5:30, when I next peeked at the screen, the sun was beginning its accent. The start is the most colorful part of a sunrise, and I wanted to see it but didn’t want to commit to being up, so I went to the 8th deck in my nightgown. I grabbed a few pictures and then went back down to my room at 6:00 a.m. to get ready for the day.

We were pulling into the port at Bridgetown, Barbados, and it was crowded with 4 other ships arriving. After 7 days, the ship’s supplies were low, and provisions and new passengers were boarding the Odyssey today. Passengers had also had their belongings shipped here, so hundreds of bags were being scanned and loaded.

Luckily, this didn’t apply to me, so after breakfast, I was ready to head out and explore Bridgetown. Of course, Angela and Steve came with me, or I went with them.

DIrrectly outside of the port is a shopping center for the cruise ships filled with duty-free and other handicrafts. I did want to find a rash guard for those sunny days coming up and some better rum than I had been buying.

First, we walked 20 minutes to St. Mary’s Church, directly across from the Old Town Hall. The church was consecrated in 1827, and on the east side is the Justice Tree, the site of public hangings at one time.

From St. Mary’s, we walked along Swan Street, which is filled with restaurants and shops. We popped into several shops looking for fun t-shirts, magnets, earbuds, and rashguards. We were not successful.

At the end of Swan Street, we turned to visit the Nidhe Israel Synagogue. It was built in 1654 and is the only one on the island.

Walking around the block, we came across the Old Fire Station, Montefiore Monument, the courts, and Barbados Central Public Library.

It was hot out, and I was glad that I had my hat on, but I was still feeling the sun. We headed to the Parliament buildings built in the 1870s, which are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Historic Bridgetown. The Island’s Parliament was established in 1639, making it the third oldest in the Commonwealth.

From the Parliament buildings, we headed east to St. Michael’s Cathedral. As we approached, there were a couple of monkies running along the fence, but I didn’t get a picture, and they were nowhere to be found when we entered the grounds.

St. Michael’s Cathedral has been there since 1789. The original St. Michael’s Church was a wooden building built in 1665 but was destroyed by a hurricane in 1780. The replacement is made of coral limestone and achieved cathedral status in 1825.

We then walked back towards the Parliament buildings to National Heroes Square.

From the square, we headed towards the beach area, but before we could get there we had to wait for the raising and lowering of a bridge.

On the opposite side of the bridge are Independence Arch and Independence Square.

We also walked past the old Empire Theatre, which Google says is temporarily closed but looks more permanent to me.

Along the waterfront are many restaurants and vendors selling the use of umbrellas, chairs, and water jets. Lobster Alive, where we stopped for a drink, offered two chairs, one umbrella, and three drinks for $15 USD. We just had a drink.

At the beach, we sat and tried a local beer. I had the Banks and Steve tried the Deputy. When we walked home, I picked up one more of each to taste test later.

On our way back from the beach we walked along the pier area where we could see the occasional sea turtle swimming about.

As a Canadian, one of the surprising things was the spotting of two large banks, CIBC and RBC. Both are Canadian banks.

I spent the majority of the afternoon trying to cool down and hiding from the sun’s rays. Sadly, our pool isn’t ready for the clorination system, so we can’t go into the Odyssey’s pools on port days. So it was in my room typing this up.

At dinner, it was dark, and the other ships at berth made for a great light show. We had a delayed leaving from the dock and were soon on our way to Grenada.