Birthday Barbados Style!

Typical colourful 'Chattel House' seen in Barbados

I’ve always liked volunteering.  It’s a win-win-win-win - especially when I work on events with my good friend Dawn Donahue.  She creates an atmosphere where the charity raises much-needed funds, participants in the event get ridiculously good value for their money spent, sponsors get high visibility before, during and after the event, and the volunteers who make it all happen are treated like gold and get to have as much fun as everyone else.  There is almost always some form of auction - live, online, silent . . . or all three!  Last year at a fundraiser for an autism centre in Vancouver, I participated in the online auction where I was the winning bidder for an Elite Island Resorts gift certificate in the Caribbean.  

It's been a crazy winter on the west coast - where we might get a couple of snow episodes that last for two or three days each winter.   This year it seems like we've had a steady diet of snow from well before Christmas right into March.  And it's still coming.  So we left this behind:

Winter 2016/17 in Union Bay - there's been a LOT of this!

and used my gift certificate to fly to Barbados and do some pre-tanning for the summer we hope will arrive soon.  

Flying in to Barbados - I always love seeing shoreline
from the air.  Looks pretty good so far!

Love airports where you exit the plane on to the tarmac.
That first blast of heat is so much better than air-conditioned blandness.

The Club Barbados is a polite-sized resort about a half-hour drive from the airport.  No giant towers of anonymity here.  Just four stories of a pretty little collection of buildings surrounding three pools, colourful tropical gardens, and curving pathways sitting on the beautiful sandy shoreline of St. James Parish.  

This was a VERY nice welcome to our room!  We
are going to save it for Glen's birthday.  I think my
dear friend Dawn may have had a hand in this.

Looking down on the pool area from our deck on the third floor.  

Pretty room - comfortable, clean and feels like home.

The best part of our room is this spacious, covered patio with a bar
area and tv!  We spend a lot of time out here nursing our sunburns. ;-)

 In addition to the pool area, there is a huge covered common space with loads of comfy seating, a book exchange, a good selection of board games along with a giant Jenga game, a floor-sized chessboard and a pool table.  So it's a common sight to see groups of strangers meeting up over a game and a rum punch.  At night it comes alive with the piano bar, karaoke or a local music group.  It feels more like someone's big living room than a hotel, and so conversations and new friendships all happen readily - lots of chatter and exchange of e-mail addresses being heard in British, Canadian, American, French & German accents.  

Backgammon on the beachfront - our favourite activity!

It's fun to watch people take a move as they are walking by.

Another of the 'make a move as you walk by' games

The beach is about a 1-minute walk from our room.  I love the size of this resort - no long walks to get anywhere.  Although the swimming area in front of us is very small, we can turn right and be on a lovely beach within half a minute.  And then we can walk for several miles along a continuous string of pretty little beaches.  None are crowded, and the water is clear and warm.  There are plenty of areas for snorkelling close to shore and most of the beaches have a reef in front that creates a safe and protected area for swimming.  We walked a little too far our first day and got a bit too much sun.  Typical of us!  But it's so tempting to keep going and see what's around the next corner.

There's always a 'next corner' when walking along these beaches.

Rock . . . I mean Coral piles everywhere.  So pretty.

In my mind, these sand sculptures are better than the 'perfect' competition types.
I like to think about people having fun building them together.

These colourful crabs are everywhere on the beach.  

The ocean waves are slowly eroding this wall.  I wonder how long
it's been here?  We can walk all the way past that far point, and the
same distance in the other direction.  So being bored is not an option.

An anchor seen on one of our walks along the beach.
How long was it under water?  What boat did it come off?
So many questions.

A bit of wild shoreline - what I imagine it might have looked
like before all the people arrived.

Loved this green gate with the orange flowers
growing above.

No shells on the beaches here, but
plenty of this pretty coral.

If I had a few million extra dollars . . . 

No vacation is complete without good food.  And there's no lack of that here.  The main eating area is a covered, open-air oceanfront space with buffet breakfast and lunch, and full service in the evenings. The local birds know a good thing - they are frequent visitors to recently-vacated tables, despite the mesh netting that surrounds the dining space.  I'm sure it drives the staff crazy, but it's entertaining to watch them.  We haven't had the same meal twice, and everything has been delicious so far. Of course, I think any meal that I don't have to prepare is delicious!  The best part of all this is we don't have to wear one of those horrid resort 'bracelets' that identify us as a guest, even though it's all-inclusive. 

Cheeky little bird sitting INSIDE on the mesh surrounding
the dining room.  A good spot to keep an eye on tables being vacated.

Looking towards the beach bar from the dining room

A second option for dinner is Enid's Caribbean Restaurant - open
five nights a week for dinner.

If you like to eat early, you can get the best seat in the house!

Our favourite dining pavilion - there are only 6 or 7 tables
so we need to arrive early!

The birds like to visit us here on the deck - this little guy came looking for food, but all he found was a couple of good books:

Little yellow-breasted bird visitor.  Lots of these
around the resort.  

He checks back regularly though - and found some
bits of fruit juice clinging to the side of this glass!

Every morning the gardeners rake up these piles of flowers that
dropped from the trees the previous night.

We still see the cell phones, but they are mostly
used as cameras.  People actually talk to each
other here. 

Flowers fallen into the pool look so pretty
floating there.  

Sign at Enid's Restaurant.  I keep pondering this.  It's driving me crazy.

Yesterday, we took a mini-van tour around to the very wild north and east coasts on the Atlantic side of the island.  We considered renting a car and driving ourselves, but I'm glad we had someone to tell us what it is we were looking at!  Besides, some of these roads are very narrow.

Somewhat reminiscent of the Bay of Fundy - huge coral
formations at the little village of Bathsheba

This coast has big water, and strong currents.
We didn't see any swimmers, although we were
told it's a popular picnicking area for the locals.

Loved this little garden made of coral

Today is Glen's birthday - the day he finally starts to collect back all that money he's paid to the government in CPP over the years - yahoo!    We started our day with champagne and orange juice, breakfast in our fave eating spot, then went for a walk into Holetown to find the local museum.  We walked along the beach and boy was the surf up!  Almost knocked us off the beach, and soaked us a couple of times.  No swimming today!

We went to the grocery store for unsweetened
orange juice.  All they serve at this resort is
sweetened and I think I've gained about 5 pounds!

The birthday boy popping the champagne!

Selfies are not one of our strong points!

Church in Holetown - about a 10 minute walk from our resort.  
This was established in 1629.

The spot where the first Europeans entered Barbados
at Holetown.  Either they had a really small ship or the water
was a little deeper back then.

Tomorrow we leave for a week in Antigua at the Elite Resorts Verandah Resort and Spa there.  Full disclosure - I'm writing this blog as a thank you to Elite Island Resorts for their generous donation of not one, but THREE gift certificates to the autism fundraiser last fall.  I think it's a good example of the win-win-win.  Glen and I get a nice holiday.  The charity raised some much-needed funds.  And the resort gets a few more links to their website.  Hopefully someone reading this will decide to visit one of their resorts vs. another.  Charities need donations and they need volunteers.  So thank you to all the companies that donate goods and services, and to all the people who donate their time and effort.  The world is a better place for it.