Surf's up naked dude!
Friday, June 01, 2007
Thursday, May 24th
Our first day was so mild mannered – only 1 beach. That’s ridiculous. Day two we hit three beaches to make up for it.
After our usual walk into town, we stopped at the Deli Grotto for lunch (to-go), and caught another taxi – this time for the Peace Hill trailhead. We were to look for a spur trail off to the right about 20 yards up. It would take us to Denis Beach. Denis is privately owned and can only be accessed by this little trail, unmaintained trail. In the US (including the VIs), you can own the land above high-tide, but not the beach itself. About 20 yards up the trail, indeed we passed something, but certainly not a trail. They did say it was ‘unmaintained’
but that crawlspace through a cactus couldn’t possibly be what they meant. Hmmm. We continued up the hill to Peace Hill ruins. There used to be a huge Christ statue but Hurricane Marilyn blew it over in 1995. I think we were walking on him. Anyway, the views were okay, but not great – there were lots of butterflies too.So down we went – to that “trailhead” we’d passed. Once we crawled through the cactus thing the trail wasn’t bad. Maybe they let it get overgrown at the top to discourage people. It was less than a ½ mile down to the beach. Denis Bay is pretty big. The left side that the trail opens out to is very rocky and overlooks Perkins Cay. As you walk to the right, over coral rubble and beachrock, you see the rest of the beach. A hurricane destroyed the dock also, though remnants remain. We passed a naked guy on our way to a shady corner. He seemed annoyed we were there, and covered himself a bit. Who wants to leave that out and possibly get it burned? Whatever.
Once settled in, we needed to cool off immediately and hiked halfway back across the beach. By now another person has entered the beach with their dog. I decided to swim while T snorkeled. The waves were really breaking quite a bit – especially over the reef. So I moseyed over to the dog and her owner, Gary. He has a boat, and he’s building a house on one of the southern bays. The pup was named Sweet Bean, “Bean” for short. She was 6 months old, and was willing to swim from boat to shore but wouldn’t get in from shore. I’m thinking she probably didn’t like swimming from the boat either and was “Get me to shore! Swim! Paddle; paddle; paddle! Swim!” She was super cute.
After our swim/snorkel we snacked on lunch. Deli Grotto has the best chocolate banana bread – yum. And Tammie likes the veggie burgers, though after trying them twice I can’t say I agree. Anyway, we snacked. I tried to open a coconut, but gave up. I briefly considered carrying it with me all day, and back to the villa. I took a photo instead and left it. I don’t think it was ripe enough yet. We hung out a little longer and then took off. Naked guy and Gary had both already left – separately, not together. I don’t want to start any rumors. We hiked back up the lovely, shady hill and then down the road to Jumbie Beach. Jumbie is an African word; it has to do with evil spirits. That’s an old story though; I wasn’t going to let evil spirits effect me on this trip to Jumbie. I was going to triumph.
Once we hit the shore, we saw a wedding going on in the far corner. So we got on our gear and snorkeled in the opposite direction (west towards Trunk Bay). The snorkeling wasn’t that great; it looked like a lunar landscape down there, all gray and dead. As we got farther out, the reef rose up from the sea a bit higher, and waves were breaking over it. I wasn’t into that. I turned back. Tammie joined me, and at least I hoped for better scenery on the eastern side. After a short rest, just long enough for that Xanax to kick-in, we headed out to snorkel the other side, headed towards Denis (I’m not sure what that point is called – Windswept Point maybe?). This was the site of one of my first snorkeling adventures years earlier. See my next blog entry for details. Otherwise, this one would become much too long.
The eastern side of Jumbie had quite a bit more life. The coral wasn’t in very good shape, but we saw Parrotfish, Tang, Angelfish, Squirrelfish, Sergeant Majors, Trunkfish, Trumpet fish, and more. Across the board, the Staghorn coral seemed to be the healthiest. It was a nice snorkel – I went just as far as the first time, but we stayed in deeper water. Upon our return, to shore the wedding party was gone, but their shade had been claimed. With all the searock and pebbles at the entry, and grass bits floating in the water (yeah, I’m sure there’s a better, more accurate name for the stuff) we decided to move along. We walked to Trunk Bay next.
It was late afternoon, and Trunk Bay was closed – which means free! We nearly had the beach all to ourselves. It’s so beautiful and the soft sand stretches out ridiculously far. We bobbed around and eventually Tammie started body surfing the little waves into shore – repeatedly. She was much like the kids at the other end of the beach, and seemed to be having at least as much fun. It was so relaxing and utterly gorgeous. We stayed until nearly sunset when the no-see-ums started to nibble. We caught a taxi back to our villa – end of day 2.
posted by Shannon @ 1.6.07,
1 Comments:
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At June 06, 2007,
said...
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Naked guy, I don't understand you. You're voluntarily sunning yourself in the nude--don't get annoyed when someone sees you.
