Pictures:
1. Looking up from the Rotunda Room of Harrison's Cave. Note the small cascade in the foreground.
2. Ceiling detail of the Rotunda Room Cave.
3. The Explorer's Pool. You can see the rope ladder across the way and barely see the bottom of the rowboat on the right that are used in case of emergency.
4. The Altar. The Flowstone Wall is covered in the same white deposits.
5. A Chattel House in the Scotland District of the island.
6. One of the many beautiful beaches in Barbados.
March 18 – Bridgetown, Barbados. Barbados is the Caribbean island that we have visited the most. We came here on our first visit to this area in 1990. It's an interesting place and, in my opinion, the most successful larger island. It is not volcanic in origin but resulted when the Atlantic and Caribbean tectonic plates collided and the ocean floor was thrust above sea level in several stages. The first up thrust was rock from the seabed. The second and third up thrusts exposed plateaus that were former coral reefs and lifted the original ground to even higher elevation. This resulted in the island being surrounded by reefs with no natural harbor. Bridgetown is the main harbor and was built and expanded over the years. The plateaus created by the last two up thrusts are very fertile and mostly occupied by agricultural activities. The original up thrust is a tall limestone mountain that is home to some very nice caves.
The first visitors here were likely Portuguese explorers and the name Barbados is taken from the 'os barbados' (the beards) of that language. It may refer to the fine roots that hand from the branches of the native Bearded Fig Tree or the beards of the indigenous people that met the explorers. Early drawings of these people show that so men wore beards. In 1625 Captain Henry Powell claimed the island for the British making it one of their first colonies in the Americas. In 1961 Barbados got its independence and in 1966 Bridgetown became its capital. After 300 years of British rule the island has developed a culture closely related to the African heritage of is majority residents. However some British influence remains in the form of government and the love of cricket. They have been very successful in international cricket matches.
The major agricultural product is sugar cane, the second tallest of the grasses after bamboo. Since labor costs are up and sugar prices have gone down over the years much of the sugar produced is used in the production of rum. Mount Gay, founded in the 1600s, is the oldest rum producer in the world and has exported rum since 40 years after it was founded. Most rum is produced from molasses but some are produced from the juice of the cane. Those are not plentiful and are usually aged in barrels and more expensive.
We received a most unusual notice last night in our ship's mail. Barbados may be the most aggressive country I've ever been in about smoking. Apparently smoking is not allowed countrywide in any public space. That's probably not so unusual but their law extends to spaces on cruise ships as well. While we are docked here all public rooms are completely not smoking, as are all decks and verandas. The only place people can smoke is in their own room while we're in port. The smoking areas on the Prinsendam are well located so I hardly every see anyone smoking but here I guess I won't for sure.
Diana and I are heading off on different tours today. That's one of the good things about cruising. If you want to do something different you have built in travel companions. I don't have to worry about Diana being off the ship alone. She's taking a photo safari led by one of the island's leading photographers and I'm going to Harrison's Cave. The photo safari is a new shore excursion and Harrison's Cave has been on the list since our first visit but since Diana does not like caves we've never gone there, although I love them.
My tour to the caves will take us to the highest point of the island at about 1,000 feet, the top of the original up thrust. Harrison's Cave goes to a depth of about 300 feet but we will only be going to about 200 feet so we'll still be 800 feet above sea level. The first mention of the cave is in 1647 when Richard Ligon wrote that runaway slaves used the caves as hiding places. It wasn't until 1970 that the island's government hired Danish cave explorer Ole Sorenson to map the cave. Tony Mason, an island resident who continued to explore the island's caves for another 30 years, accompanied Ole. In 1981 the cave was opened to visitors and has just undergone an expansion and improvement program.
The welcome center is atop an escarpment that's probably part of a fault line. After checking in you take an elevator down the cliff face to the entrance to the cave. Here you enter the Cave Interpretation Center. Just inside they have displays relating to the history of the cave geologically and developmentally. The center is also interactive. They have 8 consoles located in a circle around a relief map of Barbados. When you look across the room from each console you are facing a large flat screen TV high on the wall. You can select a program to watch and the TV shows the picture while the sound comes down from a parabolic reflector over your head. It directs the sound so you can hear it but the people at the other consoles cannot. I've seen this very clever system once before but I can't remember where. They also have interactive screens along one wall that have a map of the cave with various features labeled. If you touch them you get some pictures of it as well as a narrative explanation. This area is very well thought out and executed.
After about 20 minutes you go into a small theater to see a multimedia show about the cave's development and features. The theater is has exactly as many seats at the electric tram that takes you through the cave.
The trams are very modern, probably no more than 1 year old. They have a tractor with two seats facing the rear for guides pulling two tramcars with rows of bench seats that will accommodate 4 people each. They have opened two tunnels of the cave for the tram and they divide about 200 yards into the cave. Each tunnel has its own river.
You take the shorter tunnel first. There are two main formations in this tunnel, The Village, a small dry grotto with stalagmites grouped like clusters of buildings and the Rotunda Room, a large room where the tram can make a circle to head back down to the intersection. In the Rotunda the tram stops and you can get out and walk around to see the various features. One of the cave's river flows down through this room and you can look up the river to the unimproved area with all of its formations.
Photographer's Note: (Remember my warning about reading the italicized parts of my journal. There's a high probability you may be either bored or offended by them so read them at your own risk.) I have never encountered anything quite so difficult to photograph as a cave. Without flash they are very dark, exposures are long and the probability that you will blur the picture is great. With flash there are two problems, first the distances are long and the foreground is overexposed and the background is black: second, the surface of the cave is crystals and it reflects the flash back into your camera. It would take hours and lots of remote lights to properly expose a picture and eliminate all the flare. Of course, that you actually have is about a minute to take your picture. The best technique I've been able to come up with is to take a shot with and without flash and see which works out best. Sometimes Photoshop CS can make something out of the results.
Just after passing through the intersection you come to the Explorer's Pool. The original exploration entrance leads to this pool from the opposite side. There's a rope ladder hanging down from the tunnel rim to the water. On our side of the pool there's a small rowboat leaning against the wall. The 'Wild Cave' small groups you can arrange still enter from this entrance and their tour is entirely on foot. This route still serves as the emergency exit if needed. They row you across to the ladder and then you walk the last 300 yards to that entrance.
A short way up the second (and longer) tunnel you come to the Twin Falls, a series of falls in that tunnel's river. After passing the falls you enter the Great Hall. As its name implies this is the largest room in the cave. It has an impressive domed ceiling and many stalactites and stalagmites inexorably growing closer to each other. While the room is large short walls on both sides surround the tram path. The walls of the room expand as they go upward creating a large space with not much level floor.
Just past the Great Hall is the Flowstone Wall. Here the tram path is very narrow and the walls are covered in deposited crystals. It looks sort of like drizzled white icing all along the wall. It requires extreme care not to get a giant flash back when photographing this formation.
A little further in is The Altar. It's a little grotto, this time wet, with formations that resemble a person praying. This is followed by Mirror Lake. I should have mentioned earlier that the cave has constantly dripping water from its ceiling. The guide said in the rainy season it's more like a shower. The surface of Mirror Lake is constantly being struck by this dripping and when you first look it seems to have a mosaic tile bottom. It's actually a pattern on the surface produced by the water drops.
The last feature in this tunnel is the Cascade Pool. Here again the room is big enough for the tram to do a 360-degree turn to head back to the entrance and the stop allowed us to disembark and walk into the next room to see the pool. A shaft of water exits a hole in the room's wall about 30 feet above the pool. The water is extremely clear and the only thing that prevents you from looking way down into the pool is the agitation of the surface by the falls.
Then it was back on the tram for the drive to the surface. The cave is the type of formation found in the eastern USA and represents the type very well. Compared to the caves of the southwest, this type of cave is smaller but exhibits the same sort of features found in the east. We spent about 45 very enjoyable minutes underground. If we'd had to walk, like most of this type of cave I've visited it would have been a much longer time, perhaps 2 hours plus, to see the same things making this tour very efficient. The tram stops at each feature giving plenty of time for pictures. Unless, of course, you are what I call a Michelangelo photographer meaning someone who takes so much time to press the shutter that they could have set up an easel and painted the picture in oil.
The bus ride back to the ship was through cane fields, small villages and some industrial areas.
Ronnie Carrington who produces communications materials in photo and video for business clients and also has his own photo studio and gallery is leading Diana's photo safari. They're going to the 'Scotland District' on the east coast of the island. This district covers 14% of the island and is home to the few remaining 'Chattel Houses' (a polite way of saying slave quarters) that still remain. It's part of the third up thrust during the island's development. These homes are unique to Barbados and are rapidly disappearing. They are simple homes with a steep pitched roof and no eaves. This design doesn't allow high hurricane winds to get under the roof and tear it off. They are also easily dismantled and moved to a new location, a common practice when slaves were used to harvest sugar cane.
The drove through open cane fields, villages and along the coast taking pictures and receiving instruction from Ronnie as they went. Diana reported having a good time and came back with some great photos. You have to understand that Diana doesn't take pictures much. In fact, almost never. But she has a good eye for composition and that's the key. Anyone can learn the technical aspects of photography to take good pictures; it's the eye for composition that makes photos great.
We're in port with 7 other ships today and that has created quite a bit of activity on the piers. I'd say that there are between 12 and 15 thousand passengers going through the port and for two of the larger ships it's change over day meaning they will disembark one set of passengers and embark another. We're leaving first at 3:30pm so they held a little sail away party around the aft pool. They had purchased some local beer, Banks, for everyone who wanted to taste it. It's a straw-colored lager with a mild but pleasant taste.
Since tomorrow is a day at sea we decided to pull a double-header and see the movie first and attend the second show. This is not a problem as the second show has a small audience and plenty of room. The movie was The Lost Teardrop Diamond' based on the Tennessee Williams play. That should give you an idea of what it was like. Well acted and photographed, it was nevertheless very slow paced and at time tedious. There wasn't a single character I could relate to and just about every character needed some emotional help. All that aside I'm glad I saw it but I will never be tempted to see it again.
We took aboard new entertainers today and I think the comic who performed was extremely jet lagged and very tired. I won't mention his name yet until he has a second show and a chance to show his real talent. Parts of his show were very funny but the presentation was not smooth at all. His timing seemed to be way off. Just looking at the dialogue you can easily see if it was delivered with good timing and some punch, it had a chance to be a very good show.
We're loosing another hour of sleep this evening but there's no rush to get up tomorrow so that's ok.
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