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Pelican Island
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article describes the former island off Bridgetown and Fontabelle, Barbados. There is also a small Pelican Island within the Little Sisters island group in the British Virgin Islands, and a Pelican Island located north of Galveston Island in Texas. For the island in Florida, see Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Pelican Island was a small uninhabited island that once existed off the west coast of Bridgetown and Fontabelle, in St. Michael, Barbados. According to historical record, the island received its name from brown pelicans that would nest there.
To get there, one could have used one of the pair of nearby boat jetties along the Barbados shoreline, or during low tide it was believed to have been possible to wade out to the island as well.
The island held a quarantine facility specifically for sick crew and passengers from ships, so as to not spread communicable / infectious diseases to the mainland. There were housing facilities for patients, a morgue, a caretaker's quarters and a laundry area equipped with a cauldron for boiling clothes for sterilisation.
Around the 1950's-1960's the Caribbean Sea between the island and Barbados was reclaimed and filled in, and now Pelican Island has become incorporated into the mainland in the Bridgetown Deep Water Harbour complex.
There is now a tourist attraction called The Pelican Village ("Pelican Crafts Centre") in the area, at the port, as a tribute to the separate island that once existed there.