10 more days in paradise, part 4
Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:10 am
Day 6
Up early again (6:30). Today we decided to try Baked in the Sun for breakfast. We'd never been there! We ordered some croissants-flaky, buttery, and really good.
Today we started our day at Hawksnest.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1791963557/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2233/179 ... c1c816.jpg" width="500" height="325" alt="hawksnest with trees"></a>
We found a spot on the left under some trees away from everyone else on the beach, and set up camp. I spent a little time thinking about Tom (waterguy) since I knew that his wife's ashes were here. It's odd how the forum can make you feel like you know somebody you've never met.
After a while we decided to snorkel. I was not expecting much, the coral usually looks pretty bad here. However, this time we tried a different location---way out by the boat buouys, and had an excellent snorkel! We found a huge forest of healthy elkhorn coral in excellent condition:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792753182/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2021/179 ... dd74a9.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="hawksnest elkhorn forest"></a>
plus lots of fish-parrotfish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792792400/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/179 ... 10f66c.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="hawksnest stoplight parrotfish 2"></a>
goatfish, striped grunts, gray angelfish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792761548/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2284/179 ... 85fb41.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="hawksnest gray angelfish"></a>
a HUGE porcupinefish, and squid.
We read books and swam for a while, then packed up around noon (the beach was getting too crowded for our liking). We drove out to Coral Bay and went to Skinny Legs for lunch. The waitress was really overwhelmed for some reason-it did not look too busy to me! My mahi sandwich was very good, but John's burger was terrible. He ordered it medium rare, but it came out completely charred. The waitress never came back to check on us so we could not do anything about it. John was really disappointed, because a burger at Skinny's is one of his favorite things.
Next stop, Francis Bay, where we had the beach to ourselves:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1791900741/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/179 ... c0ab9b.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis to the left"></a>
We enjoyed swimming for a while, then headed in to snorkel the right side out along Mary Point. We found lots of juvenile barracuda, a fish nursery of baby grunts, some mackerel, squireelfish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792738322/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2251/179 ... d0dc23.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis squirrelfish"></a>
baby snappers and baby jacks, huge schools of fry...one of the neatest things we found was a blind snapping shrimp and a goby working together. The shrimp was cleaning out their shared burrow while the goby stood guard. On the way back to shore we found other interesting things like a different kind of sea cucumber (furry):
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1791879395/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2086/179 ... dc9e02.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis furry sea cucumber"></a>
a ray bearing scars-maybe from mating?
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792735906/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2329/179 ... 639a56.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis ray"></a>
and a large turtle with attached remora.
Sundown at Francis Bay:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1791869669/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2290/179 ... 24b332.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis bay sunset"></a>
Dinner tonight was at Paradiso. We started by splitting the fruitte de mare-this was great. It was a chilled mix of mussels, crab, mahi, shrimp, and crab in a light vinaigrette. For mains I had a special of seared halibut with roasted red pepper coulis and black truffle mashed potatoes (the potatoes were delicious, but I could not taste the truffles), and harcort verts. John had the butter-poached lobster tail in a soupy type thing, I did not write details. The food was very good.
After dinner we went to the Tap Room. We got to taste the very end of their keg of wheat beer-my word was that beer good! I sorely wished they were going to have more during our stay, but no luck. We had a pale ale and enjoyed talking with the owner for a while.
Tonight we went to bed early after watching the Sox start to implode. Bummer.
Day 6 bug bite tally: 27!
Day 7
We slept in today-8:30 AM! Then had a breakfast of tea toast and fruit on the deck:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795988470/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2324/179 ... dee554.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="toast fruit"></a>
Today we drove to Salt Pond Bay:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795144719/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2420/179 ... 140f8b.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="spb entry"></a>
not to actually go to Salt Pond, but to snorkel Blue Cobblestone beach. Guess what we found on the beach at Salt Pond?
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795983620/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2063/179 ... 311bf8.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="spb deer"></a>
On to Blue Cobblestone-this is the start of the trail:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795132669/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/179 ... 0670af.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="on the way to bc"></a>
Here's the beach:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795951274/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2032/179 ... f445af.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="blue cobblestone"></a>
When we got there, we completely burst out laughing. All this time we had thought we visited Drunk Bay, but no, what we thought was Drunk Bay was actually Blue Cobblestone! We had a good laugh and then got into the water to snorkel. All I can say about this snorkel is WOW. If you have not snorkeled here, you HAVE to go. It is amazing. The good stuff is on the right side, around the rocks. We found lots of schools of small fish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795101135/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2096/179 ... 6fea8c.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="bc aquarium 3"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1796288997/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2226/179 ... b98d6f.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="solomon puddingwife"></a>
Spanish hogfish, damselfish, porkfish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795118363/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2372/179 ... 2417cc.jpg" width="500" height="352" alt="cb porkfish"></a>
and the best spotting, a huge eagle ray:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795103377/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2180/179 ... 92b91a.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="bc eagle ray 3"></a>
I did make a mistake on this snorkel though-I dove down to point out something to John, and went down way, way too far. It was at around 25-30 feet. Coming up I did not have enough air to make it to the surface. It was kind of scary, and I felt really weird for a while afterwards. It was totally stupid of me. I declared an end to all free dives deeper than 10 feet for the remainder of the trip.
On the way back to shore we made our first sighting of a queen triggerfish.
After snorkeling we walked over to the real Drunk Bay for the first time. It was very impressive-the waves and rocks reminded me of Maine:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795961308/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2400/179 ... 9540e2.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="drunk bay"></a>
Lunch today was at Aqua Bistro. This place was really good. We started with a split appetizer of tuna tartare, which came with cucumbers, red onion, dill, and capers-delicious. Then we both had yet another mahi sandwich. This was my favorite mahi sandwich of the trip. View from Aqua Bistro:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795119341/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2255/179 ... 8430c6.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="coral harbour"></a>
Back to Gallows for shower and porch time. Afterwards, we headed to Maho for champagne on the beach at sunset. We were the only ones there. We started to snorkel but honestly I was a little tired and still feeling freaked by my free dive incident earlier, so we called it off. We did see some rays and the usual fish suspects. After champagne, we beat a quick retreat, bugs pursuing us all the way.
Maho sunset:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795131849/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2355/179 ... 1b5292.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="maho sunset"></a>
Dinner tonight was at the Balcony. Service started out very slow, but they comped us a glass of wine for the wait and afterwards it was perfect. I was really surprised at the food here-it was better than I was expecting. We split an appetizer of coconut tempura shrimp with mango papaya sauce, and then I had the boullibaisse-mahi, shrimp, scallops, mussels, tomatoes in a light seafood broth, and John had the mango-glazed baby back ribs. Everything was very good.
Day 7 bug bite tally: 32! Half on my face! Argh!
Up early again (6:30). Today we decided to try Baked in the Sun for breakfast. We'd never been there! We ordered some croissants-flaky, buttery, and really good.
Today we started our day at Hawksnest.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1791963557/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2233/179 ... c1c816.jpg" width="500" height="325" alt="hawksnest with trees"></a>
We found a spot on the left under some trees away from everyone else on the beach, and set up camp. I spent a little time thinking about Tom (waterguy) since I knew that his wife's ashes were here. It's odd how the forum can make you feel like you know somebody you've never met.
After a while we decided to snorkel. I was not expecting much, the coral usually looks pretty bad here. However, this time we tried a different location---way out by the boat buouys, and had an excellent snorkel! We found a huge forest of healthy elkhorn coral in excellent condition:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792753182/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2021/179 ... dd74a9.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="hawksnest elkhorn forest"></a>
plus lots of fish-parrotfish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792792400/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/179 ... 10f66c.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="hawksnest stoplight parrotfish 2"></a>
goatfish, striped grunts, gray angelfish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792761548/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2284/179 ... 85fb41.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="hawksnest gray angelfish"></a>
a HUGE porcupinefish, and squid.
We read books and swam for a while, then packed up around noon (the beach was getting too crowded for our liking). We drove out to Coral Bay and went to Skinny Legs for lunch. The waitress was really overwhelmed for some reason-it did not look too busy to me! My mahi sandwich was very good, but John's burger was terrible. He ordered it medium rare, but it came out completely charred. The waitress never came back to check on us so we could not do anything about it. John was really disappointed, because a burger at Skinny's is one of his favorite things.
Next stop, Francis Bay, where we had the beach to ourselves:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1791900741/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/179 ... c0ab9b.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis to the left"></a>
We enjoyed swimming for a while, then headed in to snorkel the right side out along Mary Point. We found lots of juvenile barracuda, a fish nursery of baby grunts, some mackerel, squireelfish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792738322/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2251/179 ... d0dc23.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis squirrelfish"></a>
baby snappers and baby jacks, huge schools of fry...one of the neatest things we found was a blind snapping shrimp and a goby working together. The shrimp was cleaning out their shared burrow while the goby stood guard. On the way back to shore we found other interesting things like a different kind of sea cucumber (furry):
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1791879395/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2086/179 ... dc9e02.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis furry sea cucumber"></a>
a ray bearing scars-maybe from mating?
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1792735906/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2329/179 ... 639a56.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis ray"></a>
and a large turtle with attached remora.
Sundown at Francis Bay:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1791869669/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2290/179 ... 24b332.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="francis bay sunset"></a>
Dinner tonight was at Paradiso. We started by splitting the fruitte de mare-this was great. It was a chilled mix of mussels, crab, mahi, shrimp, and crab in a light vinaigrette. For mains I had a special of seared halibut with roasted red pepper coulis and black truffle mashed potatoes (the potatoes were delicious, but I could not taste the truffles), and harcort verts. John had the butter-poached lobster tail in a soupy type thing, I did not write details. The food was very good.
After dinner we went to the Tap Room. We got to taste the very end of their keg of wheat beer-my word was that beer good! I sorely wished they were going to have more during our stay, but no luck. We had a pale ale and enjoyed talking with the owner for a while.
Tonight we went to bed early after watching the Sox start to implode. Bummer.
Day 6 bug bite tally: 27!
Day 7
We slept in today-8:30 AM! Then had a breakfast of tea toast and fruit on the deck:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795988470/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2324/179 ... dee554.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="toast fruit"></a>
Today we drove to Salt Pond Bay:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795144719/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2420/179 ... 140f8b.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="spb entry"></a>
not to actually go to Salt Pond, but to snorkel Blue Cobblestone beach. Guess what we found on the beach at Salt Pond?
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795983620/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2063/179 ... 311bf8.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="spb deer"></a>
On to Blue Cobblestone-this is the start of the trail:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795132669/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/179 ... 0670af.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="on the way to bc"></a>
Here's the beach:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795951274/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2032/179 ... f445af.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="blue cobblestone"></a>
When we got there, we completely burst out laughing. All this time we had thought we visited Drunk Bay, but no, what we thought was Drunk Bay was actually Blue Cobblestone! We had a good laugh and then got into the water to snorkel. All I can say about this snorkel is WOW. If you have not snorkeled here, you HAVE to go. It is amazing. The good stuff is on the right side, around the rocks. We found lots of schools of small fish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795101135/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2096/179 ... 6fea8c.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="bc aquarium 3"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1796288997/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2226/179 ... b98d6f.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="solomon puddingwife"></a>
Spanish hogfish, damselfish, porkfish:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795118363/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2372/179 ... 2417cc.jpg" width="500" height="352" alt="cb porkfish"></a>
and the best spotting, a huge eagle ray:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795103377/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2180/179 ... 92b91a.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="bc eagle ray 3"></a>
I did make a mistake on this snorkel though-I dove down to point out something to John, and went down way, way too far. It was at around 25-30 feet. Coming up I did not have enough air to make it to the surface. It was kind of scary, and I felt really weird for a while afterwards. It was totally stupid of me. I declared an end to all free dives deeper than 10 feet for the remainder of the trip.
On the way back to shore we made our first sighting of a queen triggerfish.
After snorkeling we walked over to the real Drunk Bay for the first time. It was very impressive-the waves and rocks reminded me of Maine:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795961308/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2400/179 ... 9540e2.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="drunk bay"></a>
Lunch today was at Aqua Bistro. This place was really good. We started with a split appetizer of tuna tartare, which came with cucumbers, red onion, dill, and capers-delicious. Then we both had yet another mahi sandwich. This was my favorite mahi sandwich of the trip. View from Aqua Bistro:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795119341/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2255/179 ... 8430c6.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="coral harbour"></a>
Back to Gallows for shower and porch time. Afterwards, we headed to Maho for champagne on the beach at sunset. We were the only ones there. We started to snorkel but honestly I was a little tired and still feeling freaked by my free dive incident earlier, so we called it off. We did see some rays and the usual fish suspects. After champagne, we beat a quick retreat, bugs pursuing us all the way.
Maho sunset:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/1795131849/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2355/179 ... 1b5292.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="maho sunset"></a>
Dinner tonight was at the Balcony. Service started out very slow, but they comped us a glass of wine for the wait and afterwards it was perfect. I was really surprised at the food here-it was better than I was expecting. We split an appetizer of coconut tempura shrimp with mango papaya sauce, and then I had the boullibaisse-mahi, shrimp, scallops, mussels, tomatoes in a light seafood broth, and John had the mango-glazed baby back ribs. Everything was very good.
Day 7 bug bite tally: 32! Half on my face! Argh!
Drunk Bay and Blue Cobblestone are in opposite directions. Blue Cobblestone is off the Ram Head trail. Yeah, you definitely can't snorkel at Drunk Bay! You'd get dashed up on the rocks! It's cool to look at though, isn't it?
