Champers Makes Sir Gary's Barbados Top Ten

"This restaurant in Christ Church is my favourite on the island. I sometimes eat there twice a week and have come to know the owners very well. Excellent food and service, good location overlooking the sea and it has a lively bar. There are big portions of fish like blackened snapper and coconut shrimp."

Click here for entire Times article.

Is There Anyone Left In England?

So, I went to Kensington Oval yesterday attending the opening day of the 4th. cricket test match in the current series between England and the West Indies. England completely dominated this first day's play and I saw some very entertaining cricket. Who can forget that big six Strauss lofted over the stands (losing the ball in the process) to reach his magnificent century? He played every stroke in the book and then some. It was even more entertaining for the thousands of English fans cheering their team them along. The the stands were so packed with them that were it not for the blue skies and 80-something degree weather you would have thought you were at Lords or some other famous cricket ground in England. The little video below which I made with a point-and-shoot camera captured some of the atmosphere from the Greenidge and Haynes stand. The player closest to the stand is Barbados/West Indies fast bowler Fidel Edwards. He laboured all day and got a ton of runs knocked off him for no wickets, although he did suffer at least one spectacular dropped catch.

Dubaification Of Barbados Picks Up Steam

We now have a sketch and we can put a name and a face on at least one of the "significant local and foreign investors of good repute and business success..." (according to last year's Budget Speech by the Prime Minister). CBC News is reporting:

"A major realtor is proposing the creation of an island north of the Bridgetown harbour exclusively for tourism.

Director of Altman Realty, Paul Altman says this will cushion Barbados' against any negative impact from the current global economic crisis.

He believes the project would absorb all of Barbados' unemployment as well as provide a much needed economic boost, in the wake of the world economic crisis.

He made the comments at the first luncheon of the year for the Barbados Association of Professional Engineers at the Barbados Yacht Club."

Click here for entire article.

Has Paul Doyle Taken Over Culpepper Club/Whitehaven

You know how it is in Barbados - you learn what's happening on the island by reading the overseas media (usually the British press).  A blurb in a recent article in The Independent seems to indicate that Paul Doyle, the re-developer of the Crane Hotel in St. Philip, has taken over all or part of the financially strapped Culpepper/Whitehaven project at Bushy Park (at least the Whitehaven part):   

"Canadian Paul Doyle has made the Crane into one of the best hotels on the island, recently completing the Crane Village, a series of colonial-style buildings including an art gallery, a cinema, a fitness centre and a bookshop. He is planning a new project, Anani (named after the Amerindian word for flower), further north, opposite Culpepper Island. Doyle's design will make the most of the stream and ponds that are features of the site and each room will have its own infinity pool and views of the ocean."
Click here for entire article. 

Quiet On The East Coast

"Not much happens round here. The Sea Side Bar rum shop has but a couple of patrons. A short distance from the Soup Bowl, Robert LaMare is idling in a hammock on the porch of his Island Craft shop, which doesn't seem to sell a great deal except hammocks – which are currently out of stock. LaMare decamped to Barbados from upstate New York some 15 years ago and hasn't gone back. "I get two deliveries of post a month; the water bill and the lighting bill. I don't have a television or a cellphone. But I don't want or need anything.""

Click here fore entire article and discussion.

Trader Vic's Coming

If The Merricks ever gets built, and that's a big "IF" given all the shenanigans that have gone on for the last several years over the luxury resort slated for Palmetto Bay on Barbados' southeast coast, it may include a trendy world class restaurant - Trader Vic's - in its ensemble. Word of this development came in a recent press release announcing that Harlequin Hotels & Resorts - the developer of The Merricks - has signed an agreement with Trader Vic's to bring its restaurant brand to Harlequin's Caribbean resorts planned and/or under development in Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and the Dominican Republic.

Click here for details.