Bridgetown, Barbados

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I was up first this morning. We were just outside the protected harbor. By the time I was dressed, we were backing into our spot behind a cargo ship. There was only 1 other cruise ship in port with us today, Ponant's Le Champlain. The weather was spotty today. It was either hot sun & humidity or else sideways blowing rain. The good news is that we'd been here before on a perfect weather day and seen a lot out of town. It was not noted in any of the ship's informational handouts but by the onboard lecturer and the waitstaff that there were UNESCO World Heritage sites in Bridgetown. There are but I could substantiate the claim that the entire historic center city was a declared site. It also seems that the 30 in Barbados that I could find documented were mostly declared after our previous visit.

It turned out that we didn't have to walk the 1.2 miles or so to town. That was good because weather and the walk didn't look all that interesting. We shared a taxi mini-bus to town at $2USD per person. We got there before a crowd and the drivers tried to shake us down for $5 for both. We planned to give $5 as fare and tip, but it was the principle. When a crowd to fill the vehicle arrived he changed to $2 each and not one of the other 7 tipped him. We still paid the $5. The taxi mini-buses ran from outside the cruise terminal building to near the intersection of Broad and McGregor in town. Clay's only goal here was a flying fish cutter for lunch. He had targeted Mustor's as an established source that also had cheese or ham cutters for me. He actually could have gotten a flying fish cutter at the bar right outside the cruise terminal building if he could have tolerated the loud music. As it happened, we walked right around the corner where the taxi dropped us and there was Mustor's! We were about an hour too early. We walked around in both rain and sun by turns. We went in and watched the work at Agapey Chocolate. We didn't buy any because they kept it in fridges and it would melt. We walked on and through City Center Mall, over to Jubilee Gardens Park where we sat to dry out for a bit in the wind, finally across the street and inside St. Mary's Anglican Episcopal Church. The church was a UNESCO World Heritage site. Finally we walked back to Mustor's where we first went upstairs to see that cutters were only served downstairs so back down we went. We had 2 sandwiches and a Coke Zero for $6 USD. Clay had to go to the bar in the next room for a $2 USD Banks beer, the local brew. It was good.

We walked back around the corner to be immediately offered a ride back. How'd they know where we came from? This driver also asked for $5 USD and he got it instead of a tip. We rode alone back. We had to walk the shops around the terminal to spend the entire $50 Barbadian Dollars Clay had gotten at a bank downtown. That is about $25 USD.

We came back to Riviera for AC, shade, to get out of the rain and for ice cream. We showered and rested. Dinner tonight at Terrace where the menus for GDR and Terrace both look weak and unappealing. So low expectations. All aboard is 6:30 pm and sail away is 7 pm. We should arrive in Kingstown, St. Vincent tomorrow at 8 am. Country #99!

A final piece of information and comment about Oceania. This 3rd segment is the only 1 that offered YWC or Your World Collection pricing on ship's tours. If you buy a minimum number of tours, you get a small discount. So for example, yesterday's tour we saved about $7.40 each off regular price. Now when we booked the tours online months ago neither of us can remember any warning that by taking the discount we were waiving any cancellation and refund privileges. When we received our tour tickets on board, that non-refundable notice was printed prominently on each ticket. Just saying.

Early this evening we found ourselves alone on an elevator from 8 to 14 with Senior Executive Chef Heiko Baller. He asked me about my Seabands (presumably because we were docked). I took a chance and asked if he was responsible for the crispy pork knuckles the other day. He said he was and we both praised him. Clay asked if he boiled them first. He said he boiled them for half their cooking time, then roasted them at 165 C and then spritzed them with beer. Clay is still hoping to see that dish repeated. He should have asked him!

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