We just left Barbados,  Bridgetown, yesterday and are currently in St. Lucia. As apparently, not many cruisers visit Barbados these days, here’s some latest info. for those thinking about it.

Regarding the “noise war” issue in Bridgetown, we had no trouble at all sleeping at night, but we were anchored quite far from the shore and this time of the year is not really the high season. We could hear some music almost every night but it wasn’t blasting so loud we couldn’t rest.  However, it is true that the beach in Carlisle Bay is filled with bars/discos and from what we could see the audio systems are really powerful, so you could probably guess it’s still a “noise war” during peak season.

The daily fee charged by “The Boatyard” is currently set at $USD 20, redeemable at the bar, yes, but it only applies during daytime (sunbathing time). We were not charged anything after dusk leaving our dinghy on the pier.

Still, we found “The Yacht Club” a much more amiable and welcoming place, with excellent facilities for anchoring sailboats (toilets and showers very clean and well kept), very nice service and we can confirm the still very reasonable prices ($ BBD 6 for a sandwich, same price for local rum).  Temporary membership was free for us and the only possible inconvenience was the obligation to pay everything with a credit card.  Water refilling is still offered free to members from a buoy close to the shore, but depth in there hardly reaches 3 meters so it wasn’t appropriate for our boat.  And yes, WiFi signal from The Yacht Club was good and strong enough to catch it even anchored from the boat (with a cheap USB antenna amplifier) — password was ‘thehoodyacht’, useful if you’ve just arrived and anchored nearby.

All in all, we found Barbados a very nice and welcoming island, no security threats whatsoever. We talked to locals, never felt insecure at all, took the public bus for $BBD 2 one-way (highly recommended experience but not for the faint-hearted!) and everyone we ever talked to was polite, spoke perfect English and were very helpful.

We didn’t visit Port St. Charles so we cannot comment about facilities over there, but there is a fishing supplies shop close to downtown http://www.cartersonline.bb/page.cfm/FishermansCorner.html and excellent local meat sold just beside the fish market close to the Cruise Passenger Terminal.

Don Shimoda

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