The BBCThere are few clear signs of the destructive power that Hurricane Barrel unleashed on Barbados in July compared to the scene at the makeshift boatyard in the capital, Bridgetown.
A large number of shattered and cracked vessels sit on piles, holes in their hulls, their hulls broken and cabin windows broken.
Still, they were lucky.
At least they can be repaired and put back into the sea. Many others drowned, taking the entire family income with them.
When Beryl attacked Barbados, the island’s fishing fleet was destroyed within hours. About 75% of the active fleet was damaged, with 88 boats completely destroyed.
Charles Carter, owner of the blue and black fishing vessel Joyce, was among those affected.
“It was pretty bad, I can tell you. I had to replace both sides of the hull, right up to the waterline,” he says, pointing to the now pristine boat in front of us.
It has taken months of restoration and thousands of dollars to bring it back to this point, during which time Charles has barely managed to catch a fish.
“This is my livelihood, my livelihood, fishing is what I do,” he says.
“The fishing industry is booming,” echoes his friend Captain Euride. “We’re just trying to pick up the pieces.”
Now, six months after the storm, there are signs of calmer waters. On a warm Saturday, several repaired ships were refloated with the help of a crane, a trailer and some government support.
Seeing Joyce back on the water is a welcome sight for all Barbados fishermen.
But Barbadians are well aware that climate change means more active and powerful Atlantic hurricane seasons – and it may only be a year or two before the fishing industry is hit again. Beryl, for example, was the oldest Category 5 hurricane on record.
Few people understand the extent of the problem better than the island’s Chief Fisheries Officer, Dr. Shelley Ann Cox.
“Our captains are reporting that the sea conditions have changed,” she explains. “Higher swell, warmer sea surface temperatures and they’re having trouble getting fly fish now at the start of our pelagic season.”
The flying fish is a national symbol in Barbados and a staple of the island’s cuisine. But climate change has been hurting stocks for years.
At Osteen’s Fish Market in Bridgetown, flying fish are still available, along with marlin, mahi-mahi and tuna, although only a handful of stalls are open.
One of them, Cornelius Carrington, from Freedom Fish House. Fills a kingfish with the speed and skill of a man who has spent years with a fish knife in his hand.
“The barrel was like a surprise attack, like an ambush,” says Cornelius, in a deep baritone voice, over the market’s chatter, reggae and the clatter of cleavers on cutting boards.
Cornelius lost one of his two boats in Hurricane Barrel. “This is the first time a hurricane has come from the south like this, usually storms hit us from the north,” he said.
Although his second boat allowed him to stay afloat financially, Cornelius believes climate change is increasingly playing a role in the fishermen’s fortunes.
“Now, everything has changed. The tides are changing, the weather is changing, the ocean temperature, the whole pattern has changed.”
The effects are also being felt in the tourism industry, he says, with hotels and restaurants struggling to find enough fish to meet demand each month.
For Dr. Shelley Ann Cox, public education is key and, she says, the message is getting through.
“Perhaps because we are an island and we are so connected to water, Barbadians can talk very well about the impacts of climate change and what it means for our country,” she says. .
“I think if you even talk to kids, they know a lot about the subject.”
To see for myself, I visited a secondary school – Harrison College – as a member of a local NGO, the Caribbean Youth Environmental Network (CYEN), to talk to members of the school’s environmental club about climate change. I spoke.
CYEN representative, Sheldon Marshall, an energy expert, quizzed the students on steps they could take at home to help reduce greenhouse gases and carbon emissions on the island.
“How can you, as Barbadian youth, help make a difference on climate change?” he asked them.
After an engaging and lively discussion, I asked the pupils how they felt about Barbados being at the forefront of global climate change despite having only a small carbon footprint.
“Personally, I take a very pessimistic view,” said 17-year-old Isabella Fredericks.
“We are a very small country, and no matter how much we try to change, if the big countries – the big polluters like the US, India and China – don’t change, then what we do is useless. It will pay off.”
Her classmate, Tinosha Ramsham, is a bit more optimistic.
“I think all the great leaps in history happened when people collaborated and innovated,” she argues. “I don’t think we should be completely pessimistic because research, innovation, creating technology and education will ultimately lead to the future we want.”
“I think if we can make the global superpowers aware of the pain we’re seeing happening to our environment,” says 16-year-old Adrielle Baird, “then They’ll help us understand and help us find ways to solve the problems we’re seeing.”
For the island’s youth, their future is at stake. Rising sea levels are now an existential threat to small islands in the Caribbean.
It’s a point on which the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, has become a global advocate for change – in her speech at COP29 calling for greater action on the impending climate catastrophe and economic compensation from the world’s industrialized nations. are demanding
On its shores and in its oceans, it feels like Barbados is under siege – dealing with problems ranging from coral bleaching to coastal erosion. While the impetus for action comes from the island’s youth, it is the older generations who have witnessed the changes unfold.
Steven Bourne has fished the waters around Barbados all his life and lost two boats in Hurricane Barrel. As we look out over the coastline from a dilapidated beach shack, he says the island’s sands have changed before his eyes.
“It’s an attack by the elements. You see it taking the beaches away, but years ago you could sit here, and you could see the water’s edge coming over the sand. You can’t do that now. Because the sand has become too much.”
Coincidentally, at the same bar where I spoke to Steven was the Home Secretary, Wilfred Abrahams, who has responsibility for dealing with national disasters.
I told him that this must be a difficult time for disaster management in the Caribbean.
“The whole scenario has changed completely,” he replied. “Once upon a time, it was rare to have a category five hurricane in any given year. Now we’re getting them every year. So the intensity and frequency is a concern.”
The duration of the hurricane season has also changed, he says.
“We used to have a rhyme scheme: June, too soon; July, standby; October, all over,” he tells me. Extreme weather events like Braille have rendered such an idea obsolete.
“What we can expect has changed, what we’ve built our whole lives around and built our culture around has changed,” he adds.
Fisherman Steven Bourne had hoped to retire before the barrel. Now, they say, they and the rest of the islanders have no choice but to move on.
“There’s no point in being scared or anything like that. Because we have nowhere to go. We love this rock. And we’ll always be on this rock.”