A Reflection on Barbados

Hello from Cristina, Lauren, Lisa, Mari, Torie, and Neil (all of the Seniors)!

While it may not have “hit” us yet, this was our last training trip of our collegiate swimming career.  As we boarded the plane to come home, we were sad to leave the sun and warm weather to return to the cold in the Chicagoland area.  On the other hand, we were also extremely happy because without the support of our North Central community, this trip would not have been possible.  While we reminisce about the great times we had on the island (swimming in the National Championship, snorkeling out the ship wrecks, team dinners, saving baby sea turtles, and so much more), we are also reminded of what North Central College’s mission has instilled in us.

From all of us, and on behalf of our teammates, THANK YOU to the Athletic Department, swimming alum’s, parents, family, friends, and especially our Coach, Loreli (our graduate assistant) and Jen for making this such an incredible training trip. As we prepare for Conference, we will keep training hard, just as we did in Barbados.  As we prepare for graduation and become future alums, we hope to keep this tradition of traveling outside of the country every four years thriving.  Just as our community has supported us, we will support future student with engaging in what an amazing and humbling experience training trips have to offer. 

An Island Adventure

Hi, this is Mari, Julie, Lauren, Terry, Emily V., Danae, Michelle, Lisa, Cristina and Bonnie and we took Coach, Loreli and Jen on an Island Adventure today.  Before we start, we have a riddle for you.  You may not get it (since you're not true Bajans like us) so we'll have the answer at the end.  Here goes:  What has one church, one woman and nine men?  Good luck!

We met our awesome driver and guide, Dwayne at 11:30 and took off for our first destination, Crane Beach. After two minutes of extreme reversing, Dwayne, the man, dropped us off at Crane Beach. We walked down the walkway under an arch of greenery. It was quite the entrance. The water was blue and clear. We all took snap shots on the rock formations. Bonnie had a desert in her shoes, so on our way to our next destination she decided to empty them.

The Entrance

The Adventurous Bunch at Crane Beach

Our next destination was Bottom Bay. There were a dozen skinny, 25 foot palm trees.  Terry led the group in scaling the cliffs off the beach. The rocks were scorching hot and extremely sharp. 

Bottom Bay

Cliff Scaling

Next, we stopped at St. John's church. The church was built in 1645 and destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1676. Then, the church was destroyed by a hurricane and rebuilt again in 1836. Inside the church there was a huge pipe organ.  The last Prime Minister of Barbados is buried there in a huge crypt.

St. John Parish Church

Inside of the Church

The View from St. John Parish Church

Next, we went to Bathsheba. This is where all of the pro surfers go to catch some gnarly waves. This is where Terry took pictures with a monkey on his head and also where the famous mushroom rock is located. Some people also bought some souvenirs here. It was very rocky and wavy at this beach. You know it isn't safe when the locals aren't in the water. 

Mushroom Rock

Bathsheba

Following Bathsheba, we made our way to the Animal Flower Cave. But before we got there, our driver stopped in the middle of a steep hill to show us a cool trick. He shut the car off and we gradually started rolling backwards as expected. But shortly after, the car stopped and actually started moving forwards (uphill) again. He explained to us that in this situation gravity is fighting gravity. This is referred to as a magnetic hill.

At Animal Flower Cave, Lauren, Lisa, and Terry went down into the awesome sea caves. They started off going down a very steep flight of stairs. Right when they got down there it became very loud from the crashing waves and was very slippery. Their tour guide explained that when it rains a lot, the cave fills completely with water. They went to another area of the cave called the swimming pool where occasionally waves will come up and enter the cave. Also, every 40 minutes or so, 3 waves will come together to form one giant wave to flood this area. Luckily, these 3 were able to experience this. Once the guide started running out, they knew they were in trouble. But once they got out of the cave, they knew that was the best part of the trip.
On top of the caves, there were scenic areas to take pictures.  The waves crashing onto the rocks was so violent and powerful that the spray went up over 100 feet into the air.

North Point

Animal Flower Cave

JuJu and Lauren

Finally, we dropped Lauren and JuJu off to find the famous JuJu's Beach Bar. They have been talking about this for weeks. While it took a few minutes to find, it was extremely gorgeous and everyone there seemed to be enjoying themselves. They even had tables out on the sand and occasionally the waves would crash up and soak the patrons' feet. After taking a few pictures in front of the sign, they ran back to the bus and we all headed home after a long, but life changing day.









Riddle answer:  Barbados!  There are 11 parishes - Christchurch (the church), St. Lucy (the woman) and nine more named after male saints.

Snorkeling Adventure

Hello from Emily Vargo and Cristina Francisco.

After a great morning practice, the team ventured out to Carlisle Bay for some snorkeling fun.  At first glance of the beach, the water was crystal clear and the docked boats appeared to be floating on air. At this beach there are sunken ships from the 1900's. While not knowing where to go, we swam out in the ocean and found them! It was such an incredible experience and some team members actually went inside the ship! There were many types of fish to view and take underwater pictures with.

Near the beach there is a really well known fish sandwich shack called Cuz's. While they ran out of fish for the second wave of swimmer that passed by, we decided to catch the bus to go back to our hotel. Unfortunately, our bus ended up getting a flat tire, so we hopped off and went Bubba's Sports Bar and Grill. The food was delicious which compensated for the flat tire. After our meal, we hopped on the same bus back (with a new tire) and made it to our hotel safely!   

Carlisle Bay

Cuz's

Saving the Sea Turtles

After a long day of surfing we were relaxing by the beach when a fellow hotel guest asked us to help him to save baby sea turtles. We were walking around the sea and looking for sea turtles for about 30 minutes. We saved 80 baby turtles. We even saved some from the crabs.  Some crabs there already holding the turtles. We tried to get the turtles away but we couldn't save them all,  it was too late. We saved 5. Also, a crab took a turtle in the ground and we hit him with a stick to move him away, and then we saved the baby turtle. We put them in a bucket and a guy from the hotel called the Barbados Sea Turtle Project and will pick up the turtles tomorrow morning.  It was once in life time experience and we had fun.. :)

-Danae

Baby Sea Turtles

Turtle Tracks

A Surf Story

Good evening from Barbados, Jake and Neil speaking! Today, we we went on the magical journey of surfing. Everyone got a one-hour surfing lesson from these two fine, young gentlemen. The lesson started with going over the basics of mounting the surfboard in a three-step process. We then took over our newly acquired skill sets to the majestic rolling tides of the ocean. Just like riding a bike, they gave us the initial push until we were ready to take off our surfing training wheels. Some of us took longer to take off our training wheels, while others were able to gracefully ride the waves like a leaf rides the wind in early autumn. By sunset, we all grew stronger in our surfing abilities and in friendship!

Everything Barbados

Hi, this is Michelle and here are some things I could get used to if I lived in Barbados:

1. Going through several bottles of sunscreen each week and putting it on everyday as a part of my morning routine before brushing my teeth so I can get the taste of sunscreen out of my mouth.
2. Driving on the left side of the road and fearing for my life because the streets are so narrow
3. Stores not having set hours; they are on "island time" and they close when they want to everyday.
4. Never wearing a winter coat, gloves, or scarfs ever again.
5. Having sand everywhere in my living area and my shower.
6. Paying 9 American dollars for ice cream and 18 American dollars for a package of bacon
7. Drinking coconut milk instead of real milk
8. Not having snow on Christmas
9. Calling French fries 'chips'
10. The Barbados accent, man :)
11. Hearing steel drum bands almost everywhere I go

Aloe

Fresh Coconuts

Barbados National Championships

Hi again from Mark Broucek.  We'll have the swimmers write entries for this blog but since the meet we attended just ended, I figured I'd write a wrap up.  In case you didn't know, if a team does a training trip there must be a meet along with it.  We were lucky enough to be invited to swim in the Barbados National Championships during our first week here.  Our swimmers did quite well with many National Champions, Silver and Bronze medalists.  One swimmer, Julie Albright, also broke two National Records for her age group, pending ratification by the Barbados Swimming Association.

We also brought NCC swim caps to give to the swimmers that we raced.  The last day of the meet, I think our swimmers concentrated more on finding little kids to give their caps to than even their races!  The Bajan swimmers treated our caps like gold and some even swam with them in their races instead of their own caps.  But the best part of the night was the end of meet Pizza Party.  They provided a DJ and the swimmers and some parents danced in the grass for hours.  Two of our swimmers, Emily Vargo and Terry Zalud, took it upon themselves to teach the little ones some dances.  Their group started out with three or four but ended with about 25 all in a ring around them.  A couple of NCC swimmers even started a conga line which snaked around the whole pool and had at least 100 swimmers in it.  A great night of fun and fast swimming.

Barbados Fun Run

Hi, this is Julie, Lauren, Natalie, Michelle, Emily, and Missile, and we just finished the Barbados Fun Run, which started at 10PM tonight. We all started at the beginning of the starting line ready to dominate this race. We quickly became intimidated after making two friends who's goals were to run a 5:00 mile. Michelle then announced to everyone behind us to please not trample us. 30 seconds later, the race began. We were very nervous because it was very crowded, dark, we did not know where we were going, and there was a lot of pushing going on. After all of this, each of us finished the race and all received medals for finishing in the top section. Coach was very proud of us for working as a team and giving it our all, even though we are not land sport people. Because it was extremely hot and humid during our run, we went straight to the beach and jumped in the ocean as a natural swimmer would do. It was a very exciting experience to run the streets of Barbados with hundreds of people from all over the world, with the support of our team! 

Hello from Barbados!

This is Coach Mark Broucek saying, Hi from sunny Barbados!!  We arrived today ahead of the rest of the team since the team flight was too full.  I brought along Emily Manikas, Danae Stylainou and Jen McKinney from Admissions.  It really is as beautiful as they say.  I do want to tell you a little story though (of course!).

When I was researching Barbados, one thing kept coming up as its most precious resource.  Not the weather (though that is wonderful); not the beaches (again, wonderful) - but rather the way the people here look at life.  I found that out before we even left the US.  We had a stopover in Miami and I got the dreaded middle seat on the plane, between two big guys that seemed friends.  As the plane was about to taxi out, the guy in the window seat started yelling for the flight attendant to not let the plane go.  He had seen a bunch of luggage meant for our flight fall off the cart and onto the tarmac.  No one had seen it and he was not going to let the plane go without someone getting it.  The flight attendant finally alerted someone and the luggage was put in the hold.  He asked the guy why he was so adamant about not letting the plane go.  Mac (my new Bajan friend) said, "Didn't you see that one was a stroller?  No parent should have to get off a plane in paradise and have to carry their baby everywhere until they could buy a new one."  We waited an extra 30 minutes to leave but some family was sure to be happy that Mac cared.  The other guy was John, his brother, and they were born and raised in Barbados and gave me some fantastic tips on things to see.

Wonderful country and wonderful people!  Talk to you tomorrow.

Barbados

NCC Swim and Dive Team Goes to Barbados!

This year, the swim and dive team will be heading to Barbados for our training trip!  This year is very special because our team travels internationally only once every 4 years for this particular trip.  We are fortunate for this wonderful opportunity to train hard, explore another country, and create experiences that will last a lifetime!
As you can imagine, our team has been extremely excited about this opportunity since they learned about it a couple months ago.  We even made a "countdown until Barbados" that has been displayed for weeks in our training facility at Merner Fieldhouse. Our current countdown:  3 days until Barbados!

Once we arrive in Barbados, we will have lots to talk about!  Stay posted to learn more about our day-to-day practices, competitions, experiences, and explorations!