The Beach

The Beach

When I think of a beach I envision a beautiful stretch of white sand extending in an arc around a small peninsula on either side.  In between are palm trees gently waving in the ocean breezes that calmly blow in from the ocean. The sound of breaking waves stimulates the senses as the smell of salt sea air lightly stings the nostrils.  Now that’s a beach.

On the other hand, our beach is gravel; kind of a mix of driveway stone and rounded river rock scattered haphazardly across what would be considered the beach.  There are some trees scattered about, some of which, I believe, are coconut trees.  After all, they do have green husky shells on them that resemble coconuts.  I haven’t seen any seashells or seaweed or any other ocean life washed up.  I have seen quite a bit of plastic and rubber items like pop bottles, shoes, and heavy paper stuff.  It lines the gravel in wide strips, kind of like a big bathtub ring; a mark of high tide.  Actually, there isn’t much difference between the two, that being high and low tide.  I can tell its low tide when the rocks on the reef are exposed about a quarter mile down the beach.  At high tide they disappear. The waves are negligible.  Almost every time I see them they are more like strong ripples in a lake rather than the waves of an ocean or bay.  This evening a short term rain storm rolled through and I actually heard the waves rolling in.  I took a flashlight to the fence and could see roiling one footers; but by their sound they seemed much larger.

There is also the occasional animal that wanders across the beach.  I have seen some dogs, different sizes but all skinny. There are a couple of goats that come by looking for food.  But one regular daily visitor is a small black pig I have named Elmer.  He is kinda cute with his curly tail and he happily snorts at me as he continues by on his trek for food.  Daily visitors walk by or ride by on bicycles or motorbikes on their way to some where important.  I think they take the beach route because it is safer than the road.

It is relaxing in the morning to watch the fishermen row by in their boats on their way to fishing grounds.  Of course, I think the fishing grounds are wherever they manage to throw a net.  Going the other way from the reef is another small promontory at the mouth of a small creek.  I’ve noticed many fishermen casting their nets at that location.  I don’t know if they catch much as I’m usually doing something else by the time they drag their nets in.  But I did see a man walk by today with a fish hanging from his rope.  It was a good sized one, too.

River entering the bay

Where the river actually enters the ocean

Mountains around the bay

Fishing boat

Elmer

Paul and John have both done some snorkeling out on the reef.  The water is murky most of the time but they say at mid day when the sun is high and the winds are calm the visibility is not too bad.  Paul went on Saturday and said he watched a Moray Eel for almost a half an hour.  It was a small one, only a couple of feet long, but he was fascinated and enjoyed watching it.  Perhaps I’ll go with one of them some weekend in the future.