# 7: Barbados

Sitting with my morning coffee on our balcony brought me an extra air of excitement today as I looked out at Bridgetown, the Capital of Barbados. As a cricketer, (obviously in days well and truly passed, but still an avid fan) I was looking forward to visiting the home of one of the greatest cricketers of all time, Sir Garfield Sobers. Sir Garfield was and, in many eyes, still the greatest all-rounder to ever play the game. I'm probably boring the non-cricket fraternity who may be reading this, but he could bowl spin, and with pace and take an abundance of wickets with either. As a batsman, he held the world record score in test matches of 365 not out, this record stood from 1958 to 1994!

I'll bore you more with my own personal story and the reason that I'm so keen to see the hometown of Sir Garfield. In 1969, just before my 13th birthday, the West Indian cricket team, including Sir Garfield Sobers played the second test of their tour to NZ at the Basin Reserve in Wellington. NZ were in a commanding position leading into the last day and my father, knowing of my passion for the sport let me have a day off school to go to the game and hopefully watch a rare NZ victory. As an avid cricket lad, I took a cricket book with me that had many photos of the West Indian team and also many of the NZ team playing, my aim was to get as many autographs as possible including one "special" one, if at all possible. The game finished just before lunch with a famous NZ victory. By now I had obtained many autographs, but I had not been able to find Sir Garfield. I knew that there was really only one way in and out of the Basin Reserve from where the cricketer's changing rooms were, so I positioned myself by the rear door and waited, and waited, and waited! Many other players were coming and going and the cricket was well and truly over. One ex NZ player, Artie Dick had left early in my vigil, and I got him to sign his photo in my book. About two hours later he came back and asked what I was waiting for. I politely said that I hadn't seen Mr. Sobers leave yet and I was hoping to get his autograph. With this he went back inside, and I never thought much about it until he came back out and said, "come with me"! He took me down into the dungeons below the grandstand and into Sir Garfield's changing room. Here I was with the greatest cricketer of all time, he was sitting there, still with only a towel around him doing an interview with a reporter. He ignored the reporter and asked me all about my cricket and went about signing his photo in my book. I probably learnt the lesson that day that patience is a virtue and good things come to those who wait! I couldn't wait to get home and show my father!

Dan and I with the statue of Sir Garfield Sobers, the Kensington Oval in the background.

Anyway, back to Barbados! 😁

Barbados gained its independence from Britain in 1966 so I guess that is why there is a strong following and participation in British sports like cricket and English is still the main language spoken on the Island. Sugar Cane is the main crop and along with tourism is the main source of income. Barbados is also known as the birthplace of rum and the Mt Gay rum distillery.

Just another little tidbit of useless information, the wealthiest person on the Island is actually Rihanna, who was also born on the Island!

Today, along with Alana and Dan, (another cricket lover and former player), we decided to hire a van and driver and tour the Island. Barbados is not a very big Island and only 23km wide and 34km long so once you have decided what you want to visit it is not too hard to get there. Our plan was to visit Kensington Oval and the Mt Gay rum distillery, generally though we just wanted to have a good look around and get a feel for the culture and end up on one of the 80 fantastic beaches on the Island.

Firstly, we decided to have a good walk around the shopping area in Bridgetown which is famous for duty free shopping at very sharp prices, and for all the top designer brands. With two ladies in tow, this took considerably longer than planned and we realised that we may be running out of time and with 5pm being the deadline back to the ship we decided that we didn't have time to venture too far out of Bridgetown. Luckily though, Kensington Oval was pretty close, so we jumped in a taxi to take us there. I was very happy when we got there to see a statue of the afore mentioned Sir Garfield Sobers in a prominent position on the way into the ground, photo above!

The day was hot and with all the walking and rushing we decided it was time to relax so we got our taxi to drop us off at Brownes Beach in Carlisle Bay. I don't think there is a bad beach on any Island in the Caribbean and Barbados is no different. Brownes Beach is just another example of how beautiful the Caribbean Islands are, and at only a couple of miles from the port we had a relaxing couple of hours before getting another taxi back to the ship.

We made it back to the ship in plenty of time, so it was back up to our cabin to freshen up. Mary had been visiting the Persian Gardens Spa up on the 12th floor of the ship, we had free access to this due to our upgrade to Aqua Class! She said I should go with her to experience it. Now I've never been to a health spa in my life, so I didn't think this was for me, but she insisted that I'd love it, so I decided to give it a try with her. She had described these ergonomic heated and tiled beds that you just lay on and relax, sounded good to me so off we went. There are many other aspects to the Persian Garden Spa, but the beds are all we are going for today. We arrived and we were fortunate that that there were 2 beds side by side with the other beds all spoken for. I watched Mary and she put a towel down and laid on it, as it appears everyone else had too, so I did the same. I laid there and thought, well this is quite pleasant, but I don't really know what all the fuss is about. Within a minute or so I felt the heat start to come through and could feel myself start to drift off into quite slumber. Well, that's what I thought anyway, next thing I hear Mary trying to wake me as I was snoring the house down to the extent that some of the other guests got up and left! She was very embarrassed about the whole incident; she was telling everyone at dinner about it, so I guess she got some good mileage out of it! 😁😁

Another day gone by and a few more memories to file away! Tomorrow, we wake up in St Lucia!

The scene of the snoring incident! Another delightful beach.

Nice view to wake up to in Bridgetown. The Royal Clipper takes cruises for up to 227 passengers, it has 42 sails!

They certainly treat their horses well and horse racing is surprisingly big on the Island. probably another thing from the former British governance?