Familiarisation with Barbados

19 January 2021

It’s twelve days since we were released from quarantine and we have been pretty active in terms of leisure activities and looking for a longer-term rental property to stay in.

We have swum in the sea off Dover Beach, had lunch at Mullins above a lovely beach on the West coast and visited two other beaches. Very little beats lying back on a longer just feet from the sea, watching the sun set with a beer in hand on a balmy evening.

Coming from Eastbourne in East Sussex, England, I was amused to see that the beach area we tend to frequent has surrounding areas called Worthing, Brighton, Hastings and Marine Gardens with a stretch of coast named Beachy Head.

We have also played golf at two courses in the southern part of the island. I am dying to try the Old Nine and the Country Club courses at Sandy Lane and the Royal Westmoreland. But securing a longer-term rental property is the priority at the moment. The agents we have met have been active and helpful and we have identified three we like. But, as always, each comes with a compromise.

We visited a local supermarket at Six Roads for the first time and I was surprised and delighted to see some familiar Tesco own label products and Heinz baked beans! The one local variety we tried was odd to say the least. There is no doubt prices are at between one and a half to treble what we would pay back home in the UK. So, we will need to exercise some discipline when we do our food shop.

We visited the Sheraton Mall to source a local SIM card and a few other things and while impressed with the Covid precautions — temperature taken on entry and insistence on using hand sanitiser — we found having to take hand sanitiser on entry to every store a little hard wearing on the hands.

Despite buying fumigators and coils we continue to be bitten by small mosquitoes which are hard to see and hear unlike the UK variety or those I have encountered in the Far East. Its Dengue season so we need to be careful and we are more worried about contracting this than Covid. The symptoms, apparently are the same!

The climate continues to be very pleasant with a constant breeze from the easterly trade winds keeping us cool.