Barbados beach banter, where shall we start…. 🌴

Grateful  

Anywhere I’m able to travel purely for enjoyment is a privilege, and I thank God for every blessed minute I’m able to do it. An unexpected room upgrade to a lovely one bedroom ocean front suite on arrival, in a beautiful hotel, super welcoming and engaging staff, along with a surprise knock on my room door later on with a complimentary bottle of wine – and then another glorious sunset, well it was enough to bring me to tears. 🙏

There’s a film someone recommended to me many many years ago called Pay it Forward. I should watch it again…. From what I remember, the take-away was that when someone does something nice for you, try and do something nice for someone else in turn, aka “Pay it Forward” and keep the kindness and generous energy spreading far and wide. No matter how small the gesture, the principle remains the same. 💛

Tea

We might as well have a quick brew while we’re at it! This was a Caribbean ginger tea I picked in Barbados – you could buy a box of these, or individual sachets, the shop owner pointed this out to me when she saw me put the full box back on the shelf – so I thought I’d give it a try. Bit wary of the ‘spray’ dried reference – what on earth did they spray on it.

Very nice, though I don’t take sugar in my drinks and this sachet already had sugar in it – but fine as a one off!

Funny Looking

What kind of seaweed is this? Looks like green jelly beans or some sort of algae.

Attacked!!

So. One of the hotels I stayed in had a cute little nook of a secluded white beach – sounds idyllic, and it was, until…..

I felt some kind of scratching pain sensation – wasn’t sure whether it was itching or stinging or just pain but it wasn’t good. I felt it on small areas on top of my bum and around the top of my leg. My first thought was “I’ve been (for the first time ever) stung by a jelly fish” since there’s no way mosquitos could be getting at me like this underwater. In fact the mosquitos hadn’t bothered me at all really, a week into my trip.

I looked down through the beautiful turquoise water to see if I was bleeding or red….and didn’t notice anything, rubbed my skin – everything looked fine despite the invisible irritation. A while later this stinging pain started intensifying again.

This time when I looked down, low and behold there was a crab clinging to my swimwear. What the…. 😲 and when I tried to brush it off, it tried to move along me…like I was somewhere for it to be on!!!!! The audacity.

This crab looked dark brown and about the size of an average sunglass lense, so not huge. I couldn’t believe it though. I’ve never had a crab encounter in the sea or anywhere before…I reckon it might have drifted from some nearby rocks. Note to self – stay away from rocks whenever you’re in the sea in future.

That said, I did notice other people in the sea scream and look down from time to time on a couple of occasions, jumping around, so maybe the crabs were nipping them as well.

Now I had some small red clusters of crab scratches, nips/pinches. Wow!!!!

I dread to think of the damage larger crab claws could do.

This never happened again when I went in – maybe the crabs were out in full force that day.

I rubbed some Savlon on it first the pain seemed to ease off a bit – thankfully, then later on I dabbed some Manuka high strength honey (UMF 15) which did the trick 🏆 (I always travel with it).

On the subject of mosquitos……

Honestly, there’s usually no escaping these critters.  

No matter what you do, they’ll get you at some point, even if it’s just a few bites – which I’d class as a lucky escape.

They love sweet blood –  and hate garlic, is this a myth? Plenty of garlic infused meals might also be good prep. 

None of the places I stayed in had nets around the beds. 

Nevertheless, this particular trip left me with no mosquito bites whatsoever, well pretty much.

What’s going on – last time I was in Bim I didn’t escape them, nor any other tropical destination apart from the Bahamas (where I got one bite on the ankle from walking in some grass for about a minute).

I asked a taxi driver “are the mosquitos on holiday”, he laughed and seemed to think they were still around but that maybe some areas had been sprayed better. At this point I’d been all over the place, including hours in x3 tropical botanic gardens and stayed in three different parts of Barbados – West Coast, South Coast and more centrally around the Bridgetown area. Not one bite.

I drink a lot of freshly squeezed lemon and lime juice (all the time, at home), I wonder if that helped – having that in my system prior to the trip and throughout….since mosquitos hate anything citrus.

Maybe the Moringa teas, spicy food and my own home made insect repellent paid off – though I stopped using the repellent half way through the trip and still no bites.

Another thing I did differently on this trip was not wear much perfume/body sprays. Usually I’d buy some in the airport and spray every day – not this time. I suspect it attracts insects and things that bite.

Turning the air con on full blast around an hour before going to bed helps as well – they hate any kind of breeze/wind – along with a quick spray around the perimeter of the bed.

Forgot to mention – the day before I flew home I received one huge red bite!!!

A few locals told me they use a thing called Citronella on their skin to keep mosquitos away – spotted some in Trimart, though I wasn’t really keen on putting a petroleum based product on my skin.

Bad Beach Jokes 😐

You’ll have to excuse my resting beach face. 

Remember, don’t give in to pier pressure! 

Can’t remember where I saw these, but there we go.

Tsunami

Seems like Barbados is absolutely covered in Tsunami warning signs these days – the signs are everywhere. Is Barbados becoming a Tsunami prone Island now…like Japan?

I don’t remember seeing these signs in past years.

Barbados, is actually quite hilly in places, so there’s a fair bit of higher ground, though not really mountainous.

Quick Stop – Beautiful Bathsheba

There were quite a few surfers out, and the annual competitions that take place usually happen in November I’m told, where people come in from abroad to compete, including Florida – you can head down and watch if you’re in Barbs!!

Generally, the advice is not to try and swim in these Atlantic waters due to the strong currents.

Chirpy

This little bird seemed to have become very comfortable around me during one particular hotel stay. I’m not sure if it was the same bird each time, but I had a feeling it was. I’ll call him Chirpy.

Chirpy was the least shy of his group, along with one other I came recognise by his unusually fluffy raised eyebrow…sometimes they got that close, so close I could see the tiny micoscopic patterns on their chest feathers. One of them looked like he wanted to jump onto me but kept stopping himself when I leaned back.

Chirpy would fly onto the balcony door handle, looking into my room, watching and waiting for me to open the door and step out (with food). Sometimes Chirpy would hop into my room if the door was open and hop around, perch on a chair, not really scared – he obviously knew his way around from previous guests!

If I was sat at the outdoor table, chirpy would fly up onto the table within touching distance, having a look at me and hopping around. Hopping over whatever I was reading – peeping at me from the side of my laptop if I had it open – bird peekaboo.

If I was stood at the balcony looking out at the sea, chirpy would hop up along the rail beside me and seemed quite content to linger for a while, hopping away and then hopping back again.

All I could think was what a wonderful little bird, if only he could talk, what would we chat about?

Chirpy (and some other of his bird friends) seemed to appreciate the meals shared with them and little treats I left out, including little fresh pieces of fruit.

I didn’t always give them food as I’d hate for them to get too dependent  – they need to go off and find food the way they were designed to. Plus tourists probably feed them a lot of the wrong things. 😬

Now I’m not sure what was going on here but I caught Chirpy obsessing over a T shirt I’d washed and left hanging outside to dry. I saw him on a few occasions, hanging off the sleeve and pecking/sniffing at the fabric for a good while – as well as stabbing at the shoulder area with his beak. There were no holes made, thankfully.

Chirpy, what were you doing???

Sweet Tooth

The birds all seem to love sweet things.  In a different location a couple of birds hopped over to my table after I’d finished eating breakfast and proceeded to make fast work of the left over syrup for my pancakes – as well as a piece of fresh orange I gave them, though they seemed to prefer the syrup.

The Sea

As I admired the glistening reflection on the ocean, I confirmed to myself that this is a medicine we all need – as often as we can get it. There is something about the ocean that relaxes us, helps us to clear the mind and appreciate simple things, like the birds singing and the calmness and simplicity of nature, without all it’s artificial frills. 

Best wishes and sea views to all 🌊💛x

P.S – excuse the wobbly clips 🤭 (unfortunately I wasn’t able to retrieve any of the footage or pics from that corrupted SD card – the final quote I got came in at over £600 🤯 unbelievable (after an original rough quote of around £200, which was bad enough), so I cut my losses and guess I’ll just have to go to Barbados again in the future to capture it all again lol 🙏 we shall see!!