Oistins Traffic Jam Avoidance

So our cunning plan to get to the fish fry without meeting the Oistins traffic jam was this: We would spend the day visiting the famous Bottom Bay on the southeast coast of Barbados. Then, at about five, we'd catch a bus to Oistins, travelling in the opposite direction to everyone else!

It was an excellent plan. We just executed it in a less-than-perfect way, so if you're going to try this, please learn from our mistakes.

At about 10.30 in the morning, we left our digs in St Peter's Parish and caught a yellow bus down to the Fairchild Street Bus Terminal. From there, we caught the noon bus to Sam Lord's Castle. There, we had lunch at the Tropical Winds Apartment Hotel, then walked the rest of the way to Cave Bay and Bottom Bay.

The walk took about an hour, which wasn't great in the 30-degree heat. The GH got a big blister on his heel, though by the next evening he had rather more to worry about in the wounds and swellings department! If I did it again, I would stop for a Chefette roti lunch in Bridgetown, then head out on the bus. The bus goes beyond Sam Lord's Castle to Shrewsbury, which is where we should have got off.

Instead, we ended up making something of an epic journey, which I'll chronicle in the next few posts.

Oistins Craft Market

There is a craft market at the Oistins Fish Fry, on the promenade at the waterfront. We always visit the stall where we bought these bowls. They are, incredibly, made out of fish scales. The artist who makes them (of whom, more below) once showed us a fish scale the size of a poker chip. I'm not sure what kind of fish it came from, but I bet it was big.

He also makes lovely turned wooden bowls that are so heavy and smooth they feel like they're made of soapstone.

When we visited last, I thought I'd take a photo of all the lovely bowls at his table to post on this blog. Unfortunately, he must have thought I was planning to steal his patterns, because he started yelling at me from where he was sitting nearby. I erased the photos I'd taken--it seemed like too much work to explain to him that I was going to try to promote his work online, and he didn't look like he was in the mood for conversation.

I hope that if he ever sees this post he will realize my intentions were all good!

Oistins Bay At Sunset

Hot Legendary Fish Cakes at Oistins

These are kind of nice. Doughy, spicy, and fishy. They make a tasty appetizer before your main plate of fish.

The Oistins Fish Fry Traffic Jam

A definite downside to the Oistins Fish Fry is the traffic jam you have to endure in getting there. There are direct buses (yellow and blue) to Oistins from Speightstown along the West Coast road, but when we casually strolled out at 6 pm to the bus stop at Fitts Village (where we were staying the first time we went to the fish fry) , we had to let several buses go by as they were so packed with people there was no room for us to get on.

When we did finally get on a bus, it got bogged down in rush-hour traffic around Bridgetown, and from there it was stop-and-go all the way to Oistins! It was well past 8 pm before we arrived.

The bus goes along the South Coast, which is where most of the tourist resorts are. I can't say that the strip is much to our taste, but maybe it's best for Bajans if the rowdiest tourists are all concentrated in one small part of the island.

The second time we went to the fish fry, we left from Bathsheba. This time we thought we would dodge the traffic by going early, and presented ourselves at the bus stop outside the Sea-U Guest House at 3 pm (buses go to Bridgetown every hour from Bathsheba). Strangely, the bus never arrived, and one of our fellow would-be passengers said it might have something to do with school being let out.

So we took the 4 pm to Bridgetown and changed at the Fairchild Street Bus Terminal to the Sam Lord's Castle bus, which leaves at the top and bottom of every hour (i.e., every 30 minutes). But by then the rush hour was in full force, so we still got to the fish fry rather later than we had planned. In fact, the one-way trip took three hours!

So this year, we had a cunning plan ... stay tuned to find out what it was.

By the way, buses from Bridgetown back to Bathsheba leave every half hour between 5 and 8 pm; thereafter they leave every hour on the hour.

The Oistins Fish Fry

The Oistins Fish Fry takes place every Friday night and is well worth visiting if you are at all fond of fish! We are told that a quieter version of it occurs on Saturday nights too, but Friday night is the happening night.

Situated right next to the Oistins Fish Market, the Fish Fry is a collection of stalls and tables, rather like a Singaporean hawker centre but all--yay!--devoted to fish.

A plate of fish and side dishes (grilled vegetables, macaroni pie, rice and peas, mashed potatoes, etc.) costs about BBD 35.00. You can have your pick of grilled dolphin (mahi-mahi, not the mammal), marlin, swordfish, flying fish, and seafood kebabs. Some stalls are better than others, but we haven't yet figured out which one we like best.

I'm usually somewhat conscientious about eating seafood in an ethical way, but I figure by the time I've racked up the carbon emissions to fly to Barbados, I may as well indulge. (Plus, we get around ever so virtuously by bus!) I haven't looked into it, but my impression is that Bajan fishing practices are pretty low-impact. It's all local seafood, too!

Valentine's Day in Barbados

So this is what the GH looked like on Valentine's Day, 2010.

That's okay. When I thought of all that could have happened--a concussion, an abraded cornea, lost teeth, or even a broken neck--I was happy just to have my Good Hubby by me, even if he did look a little more colourful and puffy than usual.

The main inconvenience was that, to avoid disturbing the many stitches inside his mouth, we had to switch to a diet of mushy food for the rest of our visit.

What? No more dolphin (mahi-mahi), marlin, flying fish, or swordfish steaks? It was a cause for genuine dismay.

Luckily, we had already made our annual pilgrimage to the Oistins Fish Fry, just the night before.