Dina's

This is hands down my favourite place to eat in Bathsheba. We had a couple of fantastic fish dinners here, including one featuring steaks from a swordfish that Dina casually remarked had been caught just hours before.

Dina herself is quite a delightful host. She doesn't open every night, she told us, because she is a professional dominoes player and she sometimes has important games in another parish. However, if you call ahead and let her know you're planning to visit, she'll make sure the restaurant's doors stay open.

To phone ahead: (246) 252 5453 or email adinahg[at]yahoo.com

Seaside Bar

For a small place, Bathsheba has several pretty good eating spots. The Seaside Bar isn't exactly haute cuisine (and you certainly won't encounter fawning waiters here), but it's a good place to get a picnic lunch if you're planning to hike up the coast towards Barclays Park.

The usual Bajan goodies are on offer here: flying fish, fried chicken, macaroni pie, and so on.

Our picnic lunch from here last year was so hefty that I see I made a note to myself to split one portion between us next time.

Sea-U Guesthouse

The Sea-U Guesthouse in Bathsheba is a great place to stay if you can get a room. It's actually about a five-minute walk uphill from the rest of the town, but its elevated position affords great views of the ocean and a stiff, constant breeze.

Breakfast is provided, as is dinner, if you add your name to a list before 11 am. The food is very good (though I usually require more fibre at breakfast)--one night we had an eggplant appetizer, flying fish and macaroni pie.

There are two cats on the premises. They are both very sweet and not at all shy about begging. One has a perpetual grimace on its face, as if to say, "Come on ... but why not?" From the dining area, which overlooks a thick tangle of mangroves, you can see them picking their way over vines and gnarled, adventitious roots. I'm glad our cat Eddie doesn't come with us on holiday or he would think his indoor life very ignominious.

We also had daily visits from a pair of sparrow-like birds called grassquits. The female was quite bold--she would hop her way into our room while her husband watched anxiously from the doorway.

The long verandah with its Muskoka chairs (or Adirondack, depending on where you're from) and the common dining arrangement makes this a rather social place to stay. This is good or bad, depending on what you think of the other guests. Luckily, we liked most of the people we met and came away feeling we had made a few friends.

Our Harrowing Ordeal at Long Pond Part III

A couple of days later, we revisited the scene of the crime and saw that the sea had already broken down most of the berm that had held in the waters of Long Pond. This is a picture I took from the north end of it. You can see where it would have joined the southern end and that there was now a sandy flat where the water had breached the berm.

Perhaps when we visit again (next week!), we will see that the berm has reformed and that Long Pond has filled up again.

When we told the staff at the Sea-U Guesthouse (where we were staying) what had happened, they were astonished. The receptionist told us that she used to swim in Long Pond as a child and that the grownups had always warned her not to let her feet touch the bottom, or the mud would suck her in and drown her! She also said she'd heard stories of cars being swallowed whole and never seen again.

I'm not sure if she was saying that just to give me a thrill. It's all right to look back at a harrowing ordeal once you've survived it, had a shower, and tucked into some flying fish and macaroni pie.

I'm still sorry about it, though.

Our Harrowing Ordeal at Long Pond Part II

When we went back to Long Pond (or, more correctly, where it had been), we saw to our shock and horror that The Idiot (who was now nowhere to be seen) had succeeded in draining the entire pond into the ocean!

A huge swathe of the sea was discoloured brown by all the mud and silt that had washed out, and through a wide breach in the berm, a gushing torrent of water was running out to the ocean.

Although most of the pond had been drained--and the muddy bed of the pond was now exposed--the stream of water flowing seaward was still running so deep and fast that we didn't dare wade across it. We didn't fancy being knocked off our feet and washed into the Atlantic Ocean--not so close to dinnertime.

We saw freshwater fish being swept into the salty waters, and a crab desperately trying to scrabble against the current and hang on to the side of the breach with its pincers. It occurred to me that The Idiot had single-handedly destroyed an entire ecosystem all by himself, for no better reason than that he'd had nothing to do and too much destructive energy to do it with.

Meanwhile, our bus back to Bathsheba was passing by Barclays Park in rather less than an hour. We would have to try crossing upstream, over the now exposed muddy bottom of Long Pond.

As soon as we stepped off the sandy bank, though, we sank almost to our thighs in mud that had collected over years, possibly decades. My left Croc was swallowed up in the gooey, sucking, black silt. I had to plunge my arm in to retrieve it.

Now, I had spent a fair chunk of my childhood playing in just these conditions on the mudflats of Pasir Panjang in Singapore (now built over with container wharves), so I wasn't quite as alarmed as the Good Hubby, who seriously thought we would be sucked whole into the mud and never seen nor heard from again. Still, it was an unpleasant and unforeseen situation, and I wasn't quite sure how it would end.

I wish I had a photo to append to this post, but by this time my muddy left arm was carrying my muddy left Croc and it just didn't seem like a good idea to take out any personal electronic devices.

So we just hobbled up and down cursing for a few minutes.

Then the Good Hubby had a bright idea. He found us a couple of walking sticks, and using these to find the bottom, we hauled ourselves across at the narrowest point and made it safely to Barclays Park, where we had enough time to wash ourselves under a running tap before getting our bus.

No thanks to The Idiot.

Our Harrowing Ordeal at Long Pond Part I

At certain points along the Bathsheba coast, the ocean waves have pushed the sand up into berms like this one. These berms can be about four to five feet in height and about a hundred yards long.

One such berm that we came across, north of Barclays Park, held in a body of fresh water that was marked as Long Pond on our map. We figured it must have been a stream that had been dammed up by the berm.

It was a thriving ecosystem. Just walking casually along the top of the berm and looking in the water, we could see shoals of little fish swimming and enormous freshwater crabs lurking about the bottom.

Another species of wildlife we noticed was a tourist madly digging at the berm with his hands and feet, like some sort of demented dog. Apparently it was his bright idea to dig a channel from Long Pond out to the ocean.

Having mentally registered that he was an idiot, we went on our way. About an hour later, we despaired of ever reaching the end of the beach and turned back.

We weren't at all prepared for what we saw next ...

Barclays Park

Barclays Park (so named after the banking institution, I believe) is a pleasant picnic spot about ten minutes' drive north of Bathsheba.

The bus from Speightstown passes by on its way to Bathsheba at about 20 minutes before an even hour (i.e. 40 minutes after it has left the bus terminal).

The bus to Speightstown passes by at about 10 minutes past an even hour.

It took us about an hour and a half to walk to Barclays Park along the beach from Bathsheba. We dawdled along the way, of course.

On weekends, Barclays Park is a popular picnic spot for Barbadian families. Especially on Sundays, they always look awfully properly dressed for being on the beach. But perhaps for Barbadians, going to the beach isn't the rare occasion it is for us and so there just isn't the same enthusiasm for stepping out in hobo attire when it happens.

More likely, we are just incurable slobs.

Fortunately, this doesn't seem to discourage acts of great friendliness. Last year, just as the Speightstown bus was pulling up, a lady whose family was picnicking nearby came to ask us if we would like to ride back with her in her car.

We were so taken aback by her generosity--and flustered by the fact that the bus was fast approaching--that we declined, thanking her profusely as we hopped on board. We felt bad afterwards, as we felt we might have been rude and also that we had missed out on a chance to get to know some local people better.

Barclays Park is also where I saw my first ever mongoose. It's a nice place.

The Beach on the Bathsheba Coast

The beach on the Bathsheba Coast goes on seemingly forever. There is a tricky bit just past the Round House where you have to walk across piled up rocks for about a hundred yards, but otherwise, it all looks like this.

Last year, the Good Hubby and I walked for about five hours from the southern end near the Soup Bowl, past Barclays Park and north. We never did make it to the end of the beach, as we had to turn back and catch the bus back to Bathsheba to make it in time for supper.

The picture is one I took as we were trudging back, sunburned and weary. Note how unpopulated the beach is--long may it stay that way! In fact, all day we met only a couple of other people. Unfortunately, one of them was behaving like an idiot and caused us a great deal of inconvenience--but more on that in a later post.

Swimming on the Bathsheba Coast

Hey, by the time this post is published the Good Hubby and I will be in Barbados on our fourth visit!

In a previous post I'd mentioned that the Bathsheba coast is unsuitable for swimming. That's not entirely true.

At low tide, the ocean recedes just enough to expose a number of shallow rock pools. Some of them are wide enough for floating in. That's me in the picture, demonstrating my buoyancy.

It's a wonderful feeling to lie in a rock pool while the Atlantic Ocean pounds away on reefs less than 20 metres away.

If you're going to try this, I recommend wearing shoes. I found my Crocs were just the thing for walking over rocks to get to the pool and for protecting my feet from the sea urchins that lurk about the bottom. Crocs also float, which makes lying in the water a little easier and more comfy.

Getting To and From Bathsheba

As mentioned in an earlier post, there is a bus to Bathsheba that leaves the Speightstown Bus Terminal every two hours on the odd hours. The trip takes about 50 minutes.

There is also a bus from the Fairchild Street terminal in Bridgetown that leaves at the top of every hour (every half hour in the rush hours). The running time for this journey is 70 minutes.

The "terminus" in Bathsheba is the Soup Bowl Cafe (about which more elsewhere). The buses leave from here to go back to Bridgetown every hour and to Speightstown every two hours on the even hours.

Bathsheba

Bathsheba is the main settlement on the East Coast of Barbados. The pounding Atlantic surf on this coast makes it unsuitable for swimming, so it is not as popular with tourists.

In our view, that's a plus.

Bathsheba makes a great day trip from the West or South Coasts. You can also stay there, if you don't mind its remoteness.

Last year we stayed in Bathsheba and thoroughly enjoyed being away from the bustle and development of the West Coast. There is very little traffic in Bathsheba, and it was easy to walk from our guesthouse each night to the several restaurants that line the main drag.

There is no proper grocery store in Bathsheba (although there is a small convenience store up the hill from the Round House), but a couple of visits to the Jordans in Speightstown took care of everything.

If you worry about your hairdo, Bathsheba is not for you. My main memories of being there are pretty elemental--the sun, the wind, and the unrelenting roar of the sea.

Andromeda Botanical Gardens

Just before the bus from Speightstown descends into Bathsheba, it stops at the lovely Andromeda Botanical Gardens.

Like everything else in Barbados, the gardens are small but full of charming surprises. Here's a picture I took of a frangipani tree that happened to be in blossom--but out of leaf--at the time of my visit.

There are brochures that guide the visitor on walks through the gardens, and a cafe where you can stop for a light meal.

The bus back to Speightstown leaves Bathsheba on the even hours, so watch for it to pass by Andromeda Botanical Gardens at about five minutes past.

If you are a good walker, it's possible to make the rest of the journey to Bathsheba on foot. It's not a busy road and Bajan drivers are good at looking out for pedestrians, but remember to walk facing oncoming traffic.

Barbados Wildlife Reserve Part II

This little fellow we saw running around in the reserve. I thought it was some kind of marsupial at first, but upon reflection I realized it was an uncommonly large and charming rodent.

I think it is a mara (not native to the Caribbean). Like the capybara, the mara is a large South American rodent and a close relative of the guinea pig. It is also sometimes called a Patagonian cavy or a Pampas hare.

Anyway, I had never seen one before visiting the Barbados Wildlife Reserve. Perhaps I ought to watch Planet Earth or The Life of Mammals again to see if I can learn something about them.

Barbados Wildlife Reserve Part I

The Barbados Wildlife Reserve turned out to be smaller than I thought it would be, but as we have learned, size isn't everything.

I wasn't, for instance, prepared for the large number of tortoises clattering about underfoot. Each of them seems to have its own, somewhat opaque agenda, but at close to 2 pm they all head purposefully for the feeding area.

The green monkeys (who don't necessarily live in the reserve but are free to come and go as they please) also know that it is feeding time. Since the ground is thick with tortoises, many of the monkeys will just perch on the tortoises' shells and reach for fruit over their heads.

The reserve is also home to a strange animal whose existence I'd never suspected prior to my visit. But that is for another post.