Sara Macefield's Impressions of World Travel Market 2011

Times may be tough but, as always, the Caribbean Village shrugged off the industry’s woes with its irrepressible partying spirit that injected colour and glamour into this year’s World Travel Market. However, there was no disguising the signs of the global economic squeeze – and resentment among some exhibitors at the high cost of exhibiting at ExCeL. St Lucia had opted for a smaller stand than previously while, for the first time I can remember, Sandals didn’t take a stand at all, preferring to base itself with various tourist boards.

But, despite this, the village not only retained its optimism in the face of the increasing APD burden, but came out fighting with news of continuing investment and new developments determined to keep the Caribbean at the forefront of travellers’ minds. Work has already started to expand Antigua’s VC Bird International Airport, one of the region’s main hubs, while St Kitts is forging ahead with some major tourism and residential developments.

It was encouraging to see new badly-needed life being injected into Tobago’s hotel scene with the former Tobago Hilton becoming the Magdalena Grand and government initiatives to encourage further hotel developments on the island. But, to my mind, it was left to Sandals – one of the region’s most innovative companies – to come up with the most exciting news; that work will finally start next April on the Caribbean’s first over-water villas. This is a development bound to prompt much interest and promotion which should hopefully help to draw attention to the region as a whole.

Having visited the Caribbean on cruise ships this year, stopping in the Bahamas, Grand Cayman and Jamaica and, more recently, staying on Barbados and going off-the-beaten track in the Dominican Republic, the beauty and culture of the Caribbean continually leaves me entranced. And it’s this that makes me optimistic for the future.

The Caribbean has much that rival destinations can only dream of and with new developments and extra products coming on-stream, it has plenty to shout about. As a Caribbean specialist writer, there are plenty of stories I am hoping to tell through Definitive Caribbean. With its unparalleled breadth and depth of knowledge, the relaunch of this website promises to strengthen Definitive Caribbean’s position as an informed and independent authority – and most importantly, one that users can trust.

Retractabelt Limbo - Arrivals in Nassau

Airports are mostly pretty faceless, sterile places, despite what Alain de Botton (recently writer in residence at Terminal 5) would have us believe. The terminals are generally pretty ugly and people are usually tired, children fractious and suitcases (mine anyway) always seem to be last out onto the carousel. I find I just want to get through them as quickly as possible.

Which makes it all the more delightful when a moment arises - something surprising, ironic, illogical or comic. One happened to me recently in Nassau in the Bahamas (after the BA flight out of Terminal 5 as it happens). It didn’t start well, but by the end I was spellbound in bemused fascination, not knowing whether to squirm and join in or run for it.

Heading for the Arrivals Hall I passed the string band – traditional instruments, tropical shirts and straw hats – and I noticed a small kerfuffle in the corner of my eye. A woman, from a previous flight by the look of it, was clearly so taken by this reception committee that she simply had to dance. The band were happy enough to play along. And the pirate compere, who was swashbuckling around, engaging new arrivals in the mind-blowing excitement of being in the Bahamas, giving out brochures and advice, was loving it. I guess it brightened up his day no end.

I managed to sidle by into the main Immigration hall, and into the maze of retractabelts that keep you going back and forth, left and right, covering about two hundred yards in a building just twenty yards across. Presumably a bored official sets them up to be as long as possible, despite there being little chance of a sudden influx of a thousand desperate passengers who need to be kept in order. But I had this inkling that trouble was about to follow me.

Things were momentarily uneventful … left twenty yards… right twenty yards… left twenty yards… oh bollocks, I can’t be bothered with this... I just removed the belts from their stands and rehooked them and made my way up to the yellow line that way. I joined the five couples standing there patiently.

Moments later there was a slip sliding behind me and a slightly monotone hum. Along with the others I looked around. And couldn’t help but smile. The dancing woman was doing a limbo under the retractabelt tapes, all six of them, and was gradually making her way up to the yellow line. Her mother (I suspect) tried one, thought better of it, and then went around the long way, back and forth, encouraging her on at each straight.

They joined the Immigration behind me, puffed but still humming the tune. Don’t Stop the Carnival, I think it was… There was an engaging rebelliousness about them, but soon came a moment of panic. Was she about to ask me to dance? Luckily her mum chipped in. They were off to the Atlantis. I knew the one, the huge theme park hotel on Paradise Island - yes, the waterslide passes through the shark lagoon. Yikes, I thought, I wonder if they’ll survive (the sharks, I mean).

Not me. I’ve always thought the best of the Bahamas was the out islands and so I was headed further afield as soon as I got through the Immigration queue. Actually I was off to kayak along the Exumas. But that’s another story...

The Bahamas by Mailboat...

Few people who visit the Bahamas ever hear of Potter’s Cay, though many pass within a few yards of it each time that they are whisked off Paradise Island in one of those ridiculous white stretch limos that are so popular in Nassau. Where Paradise Island is fabricated Caribbean perfection -- massive casino, glitz and high-rise hotels -- Potter’s Cay is its alter-ego, a shabby looking area of working docks beneath the bridge.

Potter’s Quay is the main mail-boat dock that links the central Bahamian island of New Providence, where the capital Nassau is situated, to all the Out Islands, the literally hundreds of islands, ribbons of rock and sandbars spread over 100,000 square miles of the spectacularly blue Bahamian sea. After Nassau it is a reminder that real West Indian life does exist in the Bahamas after all.

The mailboats are the Out Islanders’ lifeline. Pretty much every tea-bag, breeze-block, can of condensed milk and car that reaches them is transported this way. And that’s not to forget the mail of course, some of which also travels by sea. They also take passengers if requested, which makes a novel way of travelling around the islands. As many of them travel overnight, you even get a cheap (well, comparatively, it is the Bahamas) bunk for the night.

With a departure scheduled for 5pm I was a little panicked when Bahamas Air thrummed into Nassau Airport two hours late, at five minutes to five. But this is the Bahamas. When I finally pitched up, Bahamas Daybreak III, 120 foot long, destination Governor’s Harbour and Rock Sound in Eleuthera, was still surrounded by piles of cargo.

There was all the chaos of the dock: shouts of instruction, jokes and high five greetings and in the background a small stereo screaming tinny dancehall rap -- Murderer! A fork lift truck beetled back and forth lifting pallets on board, which were then shunted or hefted by men: bread in crates, breezeblocks, bags of cement, tile grout and kitty litter, tinned fruits from Trinidad, sacks of iodised salt, industrial boxes of M&Ms, slabs of Sprite. There were pot plants, films for the cinema (Black Hawk Down, Snow Dogs), private packages for Eric Cooper and Mr Hesley Johnson, and bags of onions, asparagus tips and boxes of wine for the hotels. The mailboats have been known to take coffins and even a horse or two, but tonight’s most exotic charge, swinging beneath the bow-crane, was a Bahamas Police Jeep – its motto Courage, Integrity, Loyalty stamped on its door.

Loading was clearly going to continue for some time yet. I headed off to grab some food, passing boats headed for Exuma, Bimini (Hemingway’s hangout in Islands in the Stream) and the delightfully named Ragged Island. Under the stanchions of Paradise Island bridge are a line of stalls selling fried fish and the local speciality cracked conch. Conch comes out of its shell, a bit like a dalek, as a rubbery handkerchief with a claw. It is tough so it is battered (with a hammer) and then battered again (with batter) before being deep fried and served with hot pepper sauce.

Eventually Bahamas Daybreak III left, in darkness, just a couple of hours late. We glided past the sailing yachts, fishing boats and the gin palaces into the open sea, leaving the Paradise Island high-rises behind. A full moon lit the calm sea up for miles around.

The captain allowed me up into the wheelhouse, where there was a bank of machines, radar, gps, depth sounders, automatic pilot. When I asked about the weather he paused and looked at the sky. I was poised for a nugget of sailor’s wisdom, for a moment:

‘Ah doan know. Mi didn’ look at de forecast.’

It looked pretty flat anyway.

He described the route, following a string of romantic sounding ‘cays’: Rose Island, Booby Rocks, Samphire, Six Shilling… The whole trip crossed the Great Bahama Bank, where the sea is never more than about 30 feet deep. It is also drug and desperation territory. One mailboat captain, cruising along on a pitch black night, actually sliced a boat of Haitian refugees in half. In their bid to reach America undetected they were travelling overloaded, without lights.

We docked before first light and the unloading began. The dock at Governor’s Harbour was soon littered with piles of goods. At dawn the shop-owners, hotel managers and private individuals expecting packages appeared, loaded their pick-ups and sped off. The bread truck arrived. Mr Hesley Johnson’s boxes sat for a while and then were gone. One man cussed the captain for bringing the wrong cargo and another searched the boat for a door-frame that simply wasn’t there. By nine the dock was nearly clear and Bahamas Daybreak III was on its way to Rock Sound in the south of the island.