Showing posts with label crab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crab. Show all posts

Jammin' Cat

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

What a nice - but early! - day.  The taxi picked us up at 7:30 am for the Jammin' Cats catamaran.  Along the way we picked up a couple young women from Holland, then another from Australia.

We arrived at the Careenage, paid our bill, took off our shoes and got onboard.  We found a nice little place in the shade for a while before leaving the dock.

Barbados-careenage
Not long after we got onboard, we started motoring out of the careenage into the Caribbean for thesbille first snorkel site, the one where folks can swim with the hawksbill sea turtles. People coudn't use fins here because the turtles are endangered. Due to Tom's puncture wound, we had decided not to go in the water on this trip but it was fun to see the others swimming with the turtles.

We countinued along to a snorkel site over a scuttled French ship, the Berwin.  The Berwin is a World War I French boat scuttled in 1919 by her own crew. Her captain thought that they were being followed by a German U-Boat and decided to abandon ship first. The Berwyn sits between 7 and 10 feet below the surface depending on the tide. We could see her outline from onboard ship. Because it's so calm in the bay and because the wreck is nearly 100 years old, it is covered in marine life, such as coral, and lots of fish.

When we left the Berwin it was time to hoist the sails and head north to Payne's Beach.   In this calm bay we were close to land and it was pretty shallow so people could have fun swimming, floating on mattresses or going into shore.  This catamaran also had the luxury of drink delivery to the mattresses and swimmers!  Next time, you'll find me relaxing on a floating mattress!

After a bit, it was lunch time.  Those of us onboard got to eat while the swimmers were still climbing on board.  It was a pretty standard Bajan Tour lunch - peas'n'rice, flying fish, curry chicken, salad, macaroni pie...  I'm not complaining at all, though - I love it all :)

After lunch, a bit more swimming, then heading south again.

We disembarked about 2:30 or so and got home about 3:30.  It was a beautiful day, no rain, but I was exhausted.  I fell asleep and didn't wake up until about 8.

We got a call from the front desk - someone from the Sunday non-catamaran had called.  Tom got the number to call back on Tuesday.

Tuesday, week one

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

So last night I was making heating dinner. When I went in the kitchen there was a crab by the sink. When we tried to catch him, he scuttled under the dishwasher. Later, when scooping out ice cream (coconut cream) for dessert he reappeared and was caught. Tom released him back to the sea.

coralpoint

When we used to stay at Coral Point, we would regularly have larger crabs climbing the wall. We would just sweep them off with a broom and out the door.

That place, just up the coast, was so cool - literally. Most of the front and back walls were huge doors that could - and were - open all day so we had all kinds of wildlife crawling and flying through. It made such a nice breeze, though.

image That was the first place we ever stayed in Barbados. It was next door to Sam Lord's Castle and we had privileges there. We rented bikes that year. Big mistake. It's nice flat land and would have been great if it were about 20 degrees cooler.

This is kinda silly but I discovered a lip balm, chapstick-y product in Sam Lord's sundries store that I haven't found anywhere at home. I am able to still order it online and I usually get about 10 at a time. It's all I use now - it has SPF, a bit of color and feels wonderful.

Sam Lord's is closed now but has been bought by another hotel company and should reopen...sometime.

Sam Lord was a pirate way back but not the kind that went to sea. He stayed at home, in his castle, and put lights on the coconut trees so ships would think that it was Bridgetown They came close, crashed on the cliffs and Sam added to his treasure.

Today is going to be kind of slow for me. A little email, a little blogging, some Cushing's bios and stuff. Tom has a teleconference at noon so if we go out anywhere, it will be later.

It's ok, though - I can nap and read or float around. Some of my favorite things!

I don't know what possessed me but I signed up for that helicopter tomorrow. Me, who is afraid to fly. But last summer in Alaska, while I was in the restroom, Tom signed us up for a flight plane and it was kind of cool. I was very surprised and shocked when one just like it crashed a few weeks later.

It was fun though and I figure if I can do that, how hard can a helicopter be, anyway? We see it go around the island most every day while we're here so this year we'll be on it!

I was just reading an article about singer Rihanna in the Ins and Outs of Barbados magazine. In it it says "...few could have missed the blue and yellow paraphernalia that adorned photos captured in magazines across the Caribbean, North America and Europe..."

image Rihanna chose those colors because they're the colors of the flag of Barbados. I'm wondering if I chose those colors for the Cushing's website in 2000 because I was subconsciously thinking of Barbados, too. I'll probably never know but it's an interesting thought.