Bathsheba

Coasts & CliffsSaint Joseph,Barbados

An Atlantic shore in Barbados scattered with fossil-coral boulders standing on stems that grazing sea creatures have worn away at the waterline.

September·Quiet month

Aug–Oct

The wet, humid heart of the year, with September and October the rainiest and the surf at its smallest; sargassum still fouls the sand. Nothing closes — the free beach and the village rum shops keep their hours — but the Soup Bowl is quiet.

Year-round The fossil-reef boulders, the reef pools and the break stand every month, and almost nobody swims in any of them; the swell size, the turtles and the sargassum on the sand are what change.

Bathsheba is a village on the Atlantic coast of Barbados, in the parish of Saint Joseph, where the surf breaks white among boulders of fossil coral standing on stems that sea creatures have grazed away at the waterline, with the Soup Bowl, the island's surf break, in front of it and a slope of painted board houses behind, and it is the east coast's escape, reached by a road over the hills from the calm west. The boulders are pieces of the terraces that step up the hill behind the village, each terrace a dead fringing reef that grew to the sea surface of its day and was lifted clear, and the rocks on the beach fell from the cliff and stand on necks that the urchins and chitons have worn thin, so that at low tide the sand channels and reef basins open between them and the walker gets right underneath; the village is said to be named for the biblical Bathsheba, who bathed in milk to keep her skin soft, since the Atlantic breaks so white here that the inshore water turns to froth, and the swimming is in the rock pools rather than the sea, whose currents take people. Bridgetown families rode a sugar railway out here for pennies on a Sunday, and the picnic lawn above the sand, where the palms lean inland from the wind, is where the village still watches the sea. The Soup Bowl is a reef break that the winter groundswells crossing the open Atlantic turn on between November and March, head-high and bigger, the size the barrels are known for, and the Independence Pro is surfed on it in early November. Leatherbacks, the one sea turtle that will haul out on the island's high-energy side, nest on the east-coast sand from February to July, and the few streets of board houses, rum shops and guesthouses climb the slope painted red, blue and pink. Bathsheba is the rough side of a gentle island, and the rocks in its surf are standing on stems.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Come in the first hour of light — the trade wind is calmest then, the rocks take a low gold light, and the beach is usually empty before the day trippers arrive.
Stay in the shoreward pools — the basins nearest the break get swept by surge with no warning. Go at low tide, when the sets stop washing through and the inner pools sit still.
Put something on your feet in the pools — the coral ledges are razor-edged, and the crevices hold long-spined black urchins that Bajans call cobblers.
April to August the sand can go brown — Barbados is the first island the Atlantic sargassum drift reaches, and this windward coast catches it first; January to March is usually clear.
The boulders read best from above — the coast road climbing north towards Cattlewash gives you the whole shoreline at once: rock, white water and the long open strand beyond.

Things to do

1
Catch the Soup Bowl on a winter swell
Come between November and March, when the winter groundswells arrive and the sets are biggest; in November the Independence Pro contest is surfed right on the break. Settle on the sand a short distance from where the wave stands up over the reef, and you can follow a full ride through without going near the water.
2
Walk out among the boulders at low tide
As the water drops, sand channels and reef basins open between the rocks and you can get right underneath them. Look at the base of each block: a groove runs all the way round, and every groove sits at the same height, right on the waterline. That is where the grazing happens that wears the rock into a stem.
3
Picnic on the park lawn where the palms lean inland
The grass above the sand is where the village watches the sea from. The coconut palms all lean the same way, pushed inland by years of trade wind, and the salt haze off the break drifts over the tables.
4
Wander the painted board houses behind the beach
A few streets of board houses, rum shops and guesthouses climb the slope behind the sand, painted red, blue and pink. It is a working village rather than a resort, and it is at its liveliest on a Sunday, when Bajans come out to the coast.

Watch

Nearby

19 km