Pilot DAR ... you are right and I did all those things with my wife but as I am also a pilot; I cannot resist wanting to fly wherever I go. So far the only place the locals haven't welcomed me is Sicily.
So I had a couple of flights while I was in Barbados, with Coconut Airways, a local school / renter on the south ramp at Grantley Adams. One day was a write off as it was raining with a low base, so 2/3 trips to the airport bore fruit.
Thoroughly enjoyed myself and flew with a Barbadian instructor and all round great guy.
First time I have flown a PA38 since I was with Ed Pape on my first training flight at Ringway in 1990.
The wind was strong, consistently about 25 - 30 kts straight down the runway, which caused no problems at all. A little bit of turbulence immediately after departure whilst over the cliffs but above 1500 ft was surprisingly smooth until we came down to about 1000 ft over the west coast where there was a bit more chop in the lee of the central hills near Holetown.
I also snorkelled with the turtles nr Holetown, dived on a couple of wrecks in Carlisle Bay, visited Harrison's Cave and drove all round the island in a little Jimny. The Atlantic side waves are pretty serious from ground level, they look superb from 3000 ft.
I haven't looked at all the pics I took yet but mostly they were with me little camera out of the Tommie's opening window panel (with a good grip of the wrist strap).
You have to file a flight plan for any flight and the nearest alternative is Grenada, which necessitates an international plan and 15 separate bits of documentation. A QXC via Grenada and St Lucia requires 3 flight plans with 3 separate authorities and is apparently real hard work.
Nobody seems to have a VFR or Topo chart for the area so we just flew without any chart. It isn’t exactly easy to get lost on such a small island. At least in Tenerife we used a Tenerife Pearl freebie map of the island ! Neither my UK nor US GPS’s have the east Caribbean on so I didn’t take them. Local pilots say they just use a cheapie GPS with the co-ords of the main islands in to cross the oggin and then fly visually without a map over land.
All in all ... great fun.