When we arrived into Port St. Charles, Barbados on February 3rd of 2016, we were ready to slow down and take it easy. In the six months prior, since leaving Tipperary Waters Marina in Darwin, Australia on August 10th of 2015, we’d travelled 12,237 miles. We’d made our two biggest non-stop passages ever: 3,023 miles across the Indian Ocean between Dampier, Australia and Rodriguez, Mauritus, and 3,689 miles across the Atlantic Ocean between St. Helena and Barbados. And we’d wound 1,859 hours onto the main engine underway, meaning we’d been at sea 44% of the time during those six months. We most definitely were ready for a break.

Port St. Charles was an ideal place to relax and take it easy for a bit before slowly making our way north through the Caribbean to the US eastern seaboard. We loved watching the sunset over the Atlantic from the boat deck and had many excellent meals at the adjacent yacht club and in nearby Speightstown.

We were lucky to get a slip there: the marina is small, with only six berths, two of which are leased out, leaving only four transient slips. The marina was built to handle superyachts of up to 200ft, and we enjoyed watching two come and go while we were there. The skipper of 197′ Slipstream did a particularly impressive job of bringing the boat in and out.

A comment on Noonsite indicated that yachts smaller than 150′ were not particularly welcome at the marina. We did not find this to be case at all, in fact, we found quite the opposite and felt like we got the superyacht treatment. The marina staff picked up and disposed of our waste oil for us and dockmaster Derek Ince shepherded a package through Customs and personally delivered it to our boat when it arrived. Derek also ordered three pails of engine oil for us and carried those to the boat as well. And they fueled us right in our slip, saving us time and hassle of moving to the fuel dock, a particular help with Jennifer’s broken collar bone. Derek also came by often to ask how Jennifer was doing.

If we’re ever anywhere near Barbados in a boat, you’ll certainly find us at Port St. Charles.