Barbados Open Water Festival

Carlisle Bay in Bridgetown, within the parish of Saint Michael, provides the setting for the Barbados Open Water Festival, an open water swimming event hosted in the warm sea of Barbados and organized by Swim Barbados Vacations. The event was first held in 2013, initially offering only 1.5-kilometer and 5-kilometer courses across a single day. Today, the festival unfolds over five full days of swimming across the island. The schedule balances three days of informal practice swims with two distinct days of official competition.

The festival offers participants the chance to swim across four different beaches around the island. Swimmers who travel to Barbados can build their rhythm through the guided warm-up sessions before pinning on their race numbers for the weekend challenges. The competitive programme offers distances of 1,500, 3,300, 5,000, and 10,000 meters. Racing starts on Saturday morning with the 1.5-kilometer event, which allows participants to test their pace along a marked coastal circuit. Sunday brings the 'Swim the Bay' distances, starting with the 10-kilometer marathon swim, followed shortly after by the 3.3-kilometer and 5-kilometer contests. Every competitor crossing the finish line receives a finisher medal, with age category medals awarded to top division finishers.

The bay draws a remarkably broad international fleet. The festival has welcomed swimmers from 35 countries, bringing together recreational enthusiasts alongside world champions and Olympians. Swimmers in Carlisle Bay enjoy exceptional underwater clarity, keeping the sandy bottom in sight across the entire course while sharing the water with passing turtles and fish.

The seabed of Carlisle Bay: cannonballs, anchors and wrecks

Carlisle Bay is a small natural harbour on the southwestern coast of Barbados. Carlisle Bay has been designated as a protected marine park. Swimmers moving through the turquoise shallows glide above a living maritime archive resting on the ocean floor. The sandy bed preserves historic ship relics, including anchors and scattered cannonballs. During the Second World War, naval warfare touched these waters when the British ship Cornwallis was torpedoed inside the bay by a German U-boat. Today, the Constitution River serves as a sheltered shallow harbour for small boats and medium-sized cruising yachts. The river mouth is positioned approximately one kilometer south of the island's man-made Deep Water Harbour.

Historic Bridgetown: from the Dutch assault to UNESCO heritage

Carlisle Bay was named in honour of James Hay, the Earl of Carlisle, who served as a Lord Proprietor of the British West Indies colonies, including Barbados. Settlers built their community around the Careenage waterway, where they encountered a bridge constructed by the indigenous Taíno people, leading the British to initially call the settlement Indian Bridge. The Careenage and the Constitution River still slice the city into two parts, functioning together as an active marina for small craft and yachts. The natural harbour witnessed fierce naval warfare in April 1665, when English forces repelled an invading Dutch fleet led by Michiel de Ruyter. In peacetime, the bay became a vibrant merchant port visited by renowned figures such as Admiral Lord Nelson and a youthful George Washington. Needham's Point Lighthouse is located in Carlisle Bay. Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison were officially designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011.

Pelican Island and the modern port of Bridgetown

Just off the west coast of Bridgetown and Fontabelle once lay Pelican Island, a small rocky outcrop named after the brown pelicans that nested across its shores. The outpost consisted of residential quarters, a morgue, a caretaker's cottage, and a dedicated laundry facility equipped with a heavy sterilization cauldron. That offshore islet disappeared from maps between 1956 and 1961, when engineers filled in the intervening sea channel to construct the Bridgetown Port. The commercial harbour is situated along the southwestern coast of the island. The port basin was dredged in 2002 to accommodate large international cruise ships, reinforcing its role as a premier shipping hub for the Eastern Caribbean. Farther along the leeward coast stretches the Platinum Coast, a sunlit ribbon of white sand that was originally celebrated under the name of the Gold Coast.

Bay Street Esplanade: racehorses, shade and beach gatherings

Bay Street Esplanade features a landscaped promenade centered around a historic bandstand right by the water. Mature casuarina trees and coconut palms line the upper beach, casting deep shade over the sand for resting swimmers and spectators. After completing the swims, participants gather on the beach for informal barbecues and social happy hours featuring local rum. Exploring farther along the southwestern coast leads to the district of Hastings, known for its bright white sandy beaches and rolling surf breaks. The Richard Haynes Boardwalk, the longest seaside promenade in Barbados, starts at Hastings and winds along the coastal rocks to Rockley. Rockley Beach sits nestled within the coastal expanse of Blue Waters on the southern shore.

Continuing eastward brings you to Welches, where a stone sea wall stretching approximately 215 meters was built starting in 1999 to protect the coastal highway from ocean swells. Near the town of Oistins, Miami Beach offers typically calm waters and a sandy shoreline that serves as a docking point for catamaran excursions. On its northern side lies Enterprise Beach, which forms a sheltered cove, with a large yellow lifeguard station standing watch at the boundary between the two sands. Atlantic Shores leads down to South Point Light, the oldest of the four lighthouses in Barbados, marking the southernmost point of the island. Just 1,500 meters east of South Point, Woman's Bay hosts fishing grounds for yellowfin tuna, Atlantic white marlin, and great barracuda, benefiting from a 17 million US dollar coastal stabilization project approved in 2002.