Capital: Bridgetown
Population: 260,000
Language: The official language is English, but we noticed that "Barbados English" was almost like a new language at times.
Location: Barbados is the easternmost island of the West Indies. It lies 240 miles from the coast of South America, and about 100 miles east of St. Vincent.
Size: The island is shaped like a pear and covers an area of 166 square miles. It is 21 miles long and 14 miles wide.

We decided to hire a taxi and take a tour of the island for an hour or two before trying to find our snorkelling beach. We found 2 other cruise passengers to share the taxi with us - this is a good way to lower costs since they'll charge you for the whole taxi anyway. Our first stop was Needham's Point, past Bridgetown. The color of the sea was just as we'd imagined the Caribbean should look like - a welcome change from the cloudy gray we encountered in Martinique the day before.

The highlight of the taxi tour was a stop at Gun Hill Station - an old military look out point where one can see both the Atlantic Ocean as well as the Caribbean Sea. The old men who welcomed visitors to the site and gave talks about the history of the place and the island were very informative and wonderful to listen to, although one of them seemed to enjoy recounting (so much of) the history of Barbados, that we were afraid our taxi would be gone by the time we left him! The site is beautifully maintained, with many native flowers in bloom.

After this stop, we continued driving through the countryside and eventually ended up at our snorkelling destination - Folkstone Underwater Park, north of Holetown where we heard there was an underwater snorkelling trail. We waved waved good bye to our taxi driver and fellow passengers and excitedly donned our flippers and flopped our way to the water... where we found large waves crashing and bashing the tiny beach. The lifeguard came over and informed us that no swimming was allowed because the waters were too rough - seems that a freak Atlantic storm was passing by offshore so the usually calm waters were unsnorkellable (?). So another snorkelling attempt was aborted - even if we could handle the waves, the churning water would make visibility virtually impossible. We wandered into the water for a bit and got pummeled by the waves, then contemplated how to get back to the ship (our taxi driver wasn't coming back for 2 hours). As it started to rain we managed to find another taxi and hightailed it back to the ship, in time for a nice relaxing lunch. What a tough life.