Red Man Beach Bar

At Red Man Beach Bar
Anchored Carlisle Bay
Bridgetown
Barbados
Caribbean Sea
13'05.4N/59'36.7
267 miles from S/V Christa

We got the bolt!! Our first week here and we have not gotten much father than the clear waters and white sand beach off our bow. After our extensive searching throughout Bridgetown's fishing supply stores we were given an address for a fastener store that had a replacement bolt. The one that sheered off on the mast holding up the lower shrouds.

It is difficult for us to get motivated around here because it turns out we are anchored just off the best spot along the beach, on the best beach of the island. We are sitting in front of the best bar.. 'Red Man Bar'. Its just a tin shack run by a young 80 year old Barbados woman named Doris whom has somewhat adopted us and even offered Amy a job in her kitchen cooking. We found out yesterday that no one really gets paid for working there, Instead, you just get all the rum you can drink while at work.

Every morning a new set of cruise ships arrives and Bridgetown swells up, full of pasty white tourists. Most of them make their way down to the beach were we are anchored. Doris has beach chairs with umbrellas that she sets up every morning, then she sells drinks to the tourists, whom all disappear by sunset to get back to their ships. So this leaves the beach and the Red Man Bar for just us and the locals to enjoy the sunset. Every evening there is quite a cast of characters and everyone is really friendly. Every time we drag the dingy up the beach everyone working in the 'Red Man Bar' will ask us "You got d' bolt yet mon?"

We met a super friendly couple from the Channel Islands, Tim and Sally, who have been extremely helpful to us. They actually drove us out past the sugarcane fields to find the Fastener Store for our bolt. They let us do a load of laundry at their house, and they gave us a west coast tour of the island. They live here half the year and are great to talk to about the island.

The Barbados Yacht Club is just down the beach. They have given us a free one-week membership. Its cheap there. They have hot showers, potent rum punches, and WiFi. But they don't have the interesting cast of characters from the 'Red Man Bar'.

Our days here have been flying by and we still have a few things on our list to check off. So perhaps we will be here one more week. Fingers crossed the bolt is easy to install.

Internet is quite expensive here. So we will be waiting until we get to our next stop to update our photo and video pages. They are now quite outdated, and we have lots of new material to post. So stay tuned!!

More before we go,
Tom and Amy