Day 10 -- Diving and excursion to beach in St Anne
Monday 3/1/2004
We got up a bit later today. Lilli bought some bread while I slowly got out of bed. My legs and my back ached from the hike yesterday. We ate breakfast at the bungalow. Isabella threw two very dirty back-packs into the washing machine. The water is very soft here. Despite putting just a little bit of soap in with the wash, it got completely bubbly. When Bengt touched the glass of the washing machine he noted it was very hot, despite being on a 45C program. It felt like it was boiling.
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| Izzy is washing backpacks at the bungalows -- can you see them? |
After a while Lilli drove Erik to the diving center for his last training dive before certification. When she got back, Lotta, Lilli, Lucas, Isabella and Louise got ready to leave for the beach. We agreed to hook up via walkie-talkie later on. Bengt and I hung around the bungalows for a while. The kids played a bit in the pool. When Bengt went up to take out the backpacks, the floor was full of black water. Later, we realized the large amount of soap possibly prevented the water from being evacuated properly through the hose, instead flooding the floor. The water we are used to back home is much harder.
At around 11:30AM we left the bungalows with Adam and Karl, to pick up Erik at the diving center. He had had a great dive, even getting into a school of barracudas with his instructor. One of them had even swam just in front of his mask. He thought that was both cool and scary. They had also used the catamaran for the first time. After having picked up Erik we went back over the Traverse, heading for St Anne. There was not much traffic. We arrived at the beach in St Anne at 1:25PM. This time they did not charge a 10FF (1.5Euro) fee for parking. It was not hard to find a spot. There was a fair amount of people on the beach, but it was not packed. Lilli and Lotta had just bought some "Bokit" breads, with either fish or with ham and eggs. They had also ordered to fries. This stuff tasted very good. I ordered another batch of four when I got there. From the beach we could see that the weather was not all that great in all places of the island. We had a nice corner, so to speak. Over at Basse Terre it was raining.
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| Erik is getting off the dive boat (catamaran) |
This time they had also added a ribbon further out in the bay, along the shore, presumably coaching swimmers to stay on the inside. The bays were just beautiful. The kids went out and snorkeled. There is not much to see in the water around here. It is basically very shallow white sand that goes out for at least 200-300m. The water is very nice and warm, warmer that in the pool at the bungalows. Isabella saw a very large crab. Most of the water creatures were along the rock pier/wall that went straight out into, protecting the bay.
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| Under a palm-tree in St Anne |
After a while the clouds covered most of the sky even for us. So we decided to wrap up and leave. Just before we got ready to pack up, a colored man dressed in rasta clothes came around and bothered everyone with slurs. He was clearly under the influence of something. Fortunately our kids laughed and either talked Swedish or English. He eventually moved onto the next blanket, much to our delight. Bengt and I drove straight home while Lotta and Lilli stopped at Carrefour to resupply a bit. While we were home, Jean-Jacques reminded us to not jump into the pool. This is because a lot of water disappears through the skimmer when we make big waves. For dinner we ate bedin creole and bedin de morue.
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| Grill-Meister Bengt |
Erik told us he was stomach sick by the time it was dinner. But when told to eat what was served, he whined a bit and then ate it. Once done, he was in a very good mood. Incidentally, he did not have any problems eating icecream for dessert!