The weekend started off with grand plans to do something different. We decided to head over to the north shore and check out a few beaches. Our first stop was Brewer’s Bay. We attended a playgroup Easter egg hunt there in April and promised the boys we would bring them back to swim sometime. Chris and I decided to let the boys swim while we planned our next stop. Brewer's Bay is a calm, protected beach that is pretty shallow along the shoreline. Reagan enjoyed practing swimming, while Reilly played in the (almost non-existant) wake.
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| The drive down to Brewer's from the west side. |
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| He's really swimming! |
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| Not quite ready to swim. |
It was nice to be surrounded by grapes, however, not the kind we are used to being from Northern California! The seagrape (or baygrape) is common along the coastal areas in the Caribbean (and Florida) and are often used as landscaping material. According to an article by the Smithsonian Marine Station linked through Wikipedia, “The reddish fruits of the sea grape may be eaten raw, cooked into jellies and jams, or fermented into sea grape wine.” I wonder what sea grape wine tastes like, I am going to have to keep a look out for it! Perhaps we have winemaking in our Caribbean future?!?!
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| Sea Grapes (Chris and boys in distance.) |
We decided to head over to check out Josiah’s Bay next. On our way out of Brewers, we decided to go up the other side. We retraced our steps the last time we came out here and have not had a chance to drive up the other side. I was pleasantly surprised to come upon protected ruins. So many of the ruins around the island seem to have not been maintained, but this one was actually listed as a National Park. The sign described Mt. Healthy as an example of an 18th Century windmill used by sugar cane plantation on the island. When we got home, I found this great description of the ruins here: http://www.bvitourism.com/activity/mount-healthy-national-park
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| Mount Healthy National Park |
The last time we drove down to Josiah’s we did not even get out of the car. There were recent rains and the parkable portions of the lot were full. You cannot see the beach from the lot or the drive in, we were pleasantly surprised to see this beach when we got out there:
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| Josiah's Bay |
We decided that we would come back another day to actually swim. We got back into the car and headed over to Lambert Beach. Our previous attempt to go to this beach ended in our turning around at the entrance to the resort, after misreading the sign to say that parking was for guests only. We have since been told by several people that it is ok to park in the first lot, as long as you do not park in the condominium areas. This time, in our (not so infinite) wisdom, we took a side road, hoping to get closer to the beach than we had gotten last time. To say the road was treacherous is putting it mildly. We nearly made it to the bottom before meeting this hazard:
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| "Hazard!" |
Which ended in this problem:
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| Flat tire. |
We soon realized that although we had a spare, there was no usable jack. Luckily we were at the resort by this point, so I wandered over to the front desk and found a nice gentleman to help us change the tire. While Chris and our new friend worked on the tire, the boys and I wandered around the grounds (which were filled with bees). I think it was a beautiful resort at one time. It is a bit run down now, which is too bad. My favorite photo of the day, which is also posted on Facebook, was taken as the boys and I waited for the tire to be changed.
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| Just waiting, or plotting?? |
You would think that we would have been done at this point, however, Chris and I really wanted to get into the water. We made our way back through town, picked up some snacks and water and went out to Long Bay.
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| Snacking at Long Bay |
Our weekend’s adventures do not end here! Stay tuned for part two……
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