Barbados

Jamaica observer   With the farthest point being just a 30-minute drive from the coast, going to the beach for Barbadians is like the national past time, as one local told the Jamaica Observer. “All of us as Barbadians grew up on the beach. This was the place to be when there was nothing else to do inland. We head to the beach. It is like past time,” said Marlon Brathwaite, a local physical trainer. Another local told the Sunday Observer that attempts over the years by investors to privatise the beach have been vehemently resisted by both the Government and citizenry.

swimswam.com   It’s been a landmark year for open water swimming in Barbados. The Barbados Aquatic Sports Association (BASA) successfully hosted two major regional meets both with open water swimming races, a local charity took to the sea to raise funds through a well-subscribed open water relay race and most recently a local and traditionally “pool swimmers club” for juniors hosted a highly popular open water meet. In the midst of all this, endurance athlete extraordinaire Cameron Bellamy used the island’s waters as his training ground throughout the year and then swam an unprecedented 151K from Barbados to St Lucia to complete the longest channel swim ever.