Barbados

Playing roller coaster

The sail to Barbados was not the most comfortable of sails. For Joshua’s first sail, it felt as if we were in a washing machine. The two metre swells wouldn’t make up their minds about which direction they were going. The wind was not on our side either, so we ended up motor sailing the whole way. Despite the conditions, Joshua got his sea legs pretty quickly and never even fed the fishes once . . .we were all very impressed. Josh and I went to lie on the trampolines at the front and as a wave hit, water shot through the trampolines, drenching us both. We also sat on the front seats and our stomachs went up and down as the boat moved with the waves . . .it was as if we were on a rollercoaster. We spent an hour laughing and getting soaked by seawater. My dad bought a new rod and reel whilst he was in Australia and this thing is for a serious fisherman. The reel is so big you would think we were going to get caught by fish instead of the other way around. We did catch one fish on the sail, a small Dorado, which we decided to let go (even against my protests that we could get at least two decent sized fillets out of it). We arrived in Barbados in the early hours of the following morning. We were told that we had to go into the deep water marina to check in, in the morning. The marina was made for cruise ships and oil tankers, so we attempted to attach Jangles to a dock that was higher than the boat at some ungodly hour of the morning. We eventually got attached (with the help of one very tall brother) and settled in for the night.

the dock taller than Jangles

dorado

Once we checked in, we gave Jangles a very good scrub as she was crusted with salt from the previous days sail. We then motored around the corner to Carlisle Bay, where we anchored.

The next morning, my brother and I went for a run on the long white sandy beach we were anchored before. After that we went to the island to look around town. A cruise ship had just docked so the place was crawling with people from all over the world. My brother, sister and I walked to a small park where we picked up a geocache. It was my brothers first geocache, which was very exciting.

Art village

On Thursday we had to go to the American embassy to get our American visas. We spent three hours sitting and waiting in queues, eventually finding out that our applications had been approved and that we were looking at about a weeks wait before we could reclaim our passports. After a very taxing morning, we were grateful to step back onto the boat. That night was a dinner at the Boatyard, a restaurant on the beach, and then early to bed.

dinner

Saturday we took a taxi to the mall to go and see a movie. We watched the movie Brave, which ended up being pretty decent. My dad wasn’t too keen to watch it as it was an animated film, but in the end I think he enjoyed it. We went for a quick bite at the Boatyard again and my brother and I decided we wanted to jump on the water trampoline. As we didn’t have swimming costumes, we stripped to our undies (no one could see us as it was dark) and jumped off the pier into the pitch black water. Now, I wasn’t sure what came over me as I have always refused to swim at night time because I get freaked out by the black water but here I was . . . and I was swimming as fast as humanly possible to get to that trampoline! My brother and I had a great time jumping and climbing over inflatable mini mountains. We swam back to the pier as we saw my parents and my sister making their way back to the dinghy. It was back to the boat and straight into a warm shower.

taxi to the mall

traffic

Sunday morning, my mother, my father and I went to church. We found a New Testament church and we really enjoyed it. It was loud and kind of like the churches you hear about in the old days, the “Hallelujah, Praise Jesus!” church. When praise and worship began, the room filled with voices singing their hearts out, we didn’t even need any music. It was such an amazing feeling being there. After church it was back to the boat for some more schoolwork.

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Spheres of Thought