Tuesday, 30 Jan: Ellie’s departure day. Boo-hoo we sure will miss her 🙁 It’s been so very special to have her with us for a full 4 weeks. After Ellie has packed, Glen gets a few more jobs out of her, like finally topping up the outboard gear oil.
Then we set off back to St.Nicholas Abbey where today they will have their steam powered cane crusher working. And we are not disappointed. It’s quite a spectacle watching them hand feed cane into the crusher while the 150 yr old steam engine, flywheel and huge mechanics chug-chug-chug to a mixed aroma of stream, woodsmoke and cane extract. Glen knows a brother who would love to see this! Interesting to see the guys working in coveralls, gloves and safety glasses. Quite different to 200 years ago, we are sure.
Then it’s off to the airport where Ellie packs and re-packs next to a scale to try to get her check in bag down to weigh limit. Her hand luggage ends up weighing as much. Some things never change! But at the check in a huge upset. Her flight is delayed nearly 2 hours. This means she will surely miss her connection in JFK. We try to call Etihad (her JFK->Perth airline) but hopeless trying to actually speak to someone. All we can do is leave her to get her flight and hope for the best in JFK. A sour note to end her holiday on 🙁
We rush back to the boat to get the hire car back in time and on the way we buy a local SIM card and some fruit and veg. Boy-o-boy what a contrast in prices. We get 20GB data on a SIM for just $30. But then just a few items of fruit and veg cost us $50! And that was after bypassing any expensive fruit like oranges at $5 EACH! Oh Spain and Spanish prices – we love you now.
Evening is relaxing by the pool on internet then as the hire car people did not collect yet, we steal one more trip out in it. This time to Holetown where we “gatecrash” several swanky hotels and wonder around seeing how the other half live. We’ve found, from our Dubai days, that as long as you look like you own the place, no one ever stops you! All the other bars and hangouts in Holetown are very quiet, so we head home to sort out photos for the Barbados FB album. Feels very quiet now, without Ellie-Bean around.