havecarryonwilltravel

Saturday is a beach day. The beaches here are amazing. White sand for miles in each direction, same sand 100 metres into the sea, and warm water.

We leave The Riding Rock headed south for Long Bay and our first beach. We ask and find out that the speed limit is ’40’. So we putz along and eventually arrive at the Columbus monument and a most amazing beach. We look at the monuments but they are not unusual enough to keep us from the water. The water is sooooo blue and so clear. We jump in, it is a bit cool after experiencing the water in a wet suit, but after only about literally 2 seconds the water is superb. Bag beach one.

On the road again and 40 seems a bit slow, the road is built for speeds at least a bit faster, we haven’t seen any police vehicles, so I chance it and up the speed to 60. We are in search of Grotto Beach. It is off the main road and we venture into a ‘subdivision’ mostly unmarked of course and it takes a while to locate the beach. We find two adjacent beaches, I’m not sure they have names, but both are quite nice and we swim off the tamer sister beach and bag beach 2. We try one last time to find Grotto and bingo. It is on a small side road with a gazebo and a parking area for five or six cars. Debbie runs carefree into the water while B and I gaze across the open water.

Grotto Beach

Heading to the east side I realize that ’40’ is mph not kph. 60 kph is now the speed of choice and the distance goes by much quicker. We are looking for Snow Bay. After a short side trip, headed toward Guanahani Resort we see it in the distance, decide we are not that interested in the resort, turn around and later find we were on the way to Snow Bay but just gave up too early.

East Beach

We continue on our way heading towards a settlement called United States where we will search out East Beach. A short drive down a side road and the Atlantic Ocean is before us. We can’t quite see Africa but the view is great. The waves are bigger on this side but the water is no less clear. As we enter we all comment on the fact that the water is much warmer on the open ocean side. We thought this odd but what is, is. The sand here is absolutely silky. So soft we all mention it.

Around the next corner is the only lighthouse on the island. It is open and you can climb the eighty stairs and view the entire island. The views over the land and out into multicoloured waters is well worth the vertigo of climbing a set of stairs straight up.

The Lighthouse

Next. Back to the west side. I cannot remember the name of the beach on the north west section of the island. After three spectacular beaches this one is a bit ordinary but only by Caribbean standards. Again, as it had been all day, there are only three people on the beach, us.

The last stop is Bonefish Beach. Club Med occupies a small portion of the beach but only about a tenth. That end of the beach is still public so if you don’t mind crowds you can saunter over, but from what I understand you cannot go beyond the beach without a ‘wristband’ or you will be escorted from the property. Mighty neighbourly of them. The beach is long and the sand extends far into water making it a great place to laze about with an occasional dip into the clear blue.

We like to get a look at the places we visit. Today we bag five beaches. Every beach on the island is worth a visit.

The first day we dive we are joined by two “older” ladies from New York. They have been coming here for many years. Both are close to retirement and have started building a house on the island so they can spend the NY winters in the warmer climes of San Salvador. Super nice ladies, both having a good time diving as they can and missing a dive when they need. Guanahani is their dive centre of choice. They really enjoy the diving here and this is the place they want to settle. B tells Debbie she hopes we will be able to dive when we reach their age. I too am impressed with their moxie.

That same day there are two boat bums (I do not know the proper term but I extrapolated from ski bum) on board. C is an Aussie and from our conversation she has traveled extensively. Z is an Alaskan by birth and for a young guy has lived a goodly number of places but at the moment is living on a boat in Florida. They have been travelling together for five months in and around the Bahamas and are nearing the end of their trip. Both are good divers for their years. They had heard San Salvador was the place to dive so they headed this way and decided to splurge. Later, during the Fourth of July celebration at the Riding Rock we have a chance to chat with C and Z for a good portion of the evening. Our conversation met on the common ground of travel and diving. We end by exchanging emails and I will for sure keep in contact. Even though our ages vary greatly I think if fate were to have our paths cross, it would be quite enjoyable to spend some time in each other’s company.

Day two found us diving with our two NY lady friends and a couple Canuks. M and C are from Vancouver, thirty-five/fourtyish, and seem to live a very enviable life. M is a French girl from Paris. She has an executive type job with a firm in the business of modernizing airports around the world. Her job takes her to places like San Salvador and C tags along. This time they took a few days vacation, came to San Salvador to have a look see and do some diving. We also found common ground in travelling but these two have an interest in visiting galleries in places like Paris. Again we exchanged emails and I will again keep in touch with the hope our paths will again cross.

We don’t always make plans to keep in contact with people we meet on our travels but this time we have crossed paths with several folks of similar thought.

We have made friends on a trip many years ago and we continue to meet up with them every couple of years and spend a week diving. It’s great fun to join up and every trip our friendship expands on common interests.

Travelling provides us with an opportunity of long distance friendships. It is said the world is getting smaller and we are doing our part to make that happen.

Anemone

First dive of the day. We have descended below the boat. B swims over to me and shows me her empty wrist. No dive computer. No problem, we will share mine. I make pantomime motions indicating that we will both use mine. We carry on.

We follow our dive master to a canyon,  descend through the tall walls watching for interesting creatures. Once on the bottom, at about 110 feet, we point ourselves upward and swim to the top of the wall again.

Porcupine Fish

After a short time, our dive master motions to me that she is going to the surface to look for the boat. Oops….slightly misplaced. She locates it and comes back down.

We start to swim in the direction of the boat. Murray indicates he is getting low on air so he ascends to do his safety stop. B and I remain lower and under him. Murray surfaces well short of the boat as his air is low. B and I do our safety stop as we travel below Murray who is leading us to the boat. After a good swim we climb aboard the boat.

While chatting about the dive, Murray realizes he has my dive computer on and I have his on.

Forgotten and mixed up dive computers make for a comedy of errors on our first dive.

Spotted Moray

We swim with the resident groupers today.

Two are named Tom and Jerry, with Jerry being the more friendly. Our dive master tells us they like to be petted. I timidly stroke one, not sure if it is Tom or Jerry, and he is smooth. He swims with me for a long way, just like a dive buddy.

As we swim back close to the sand bottom, we stop at a monument commemorating Columbus’ landing on the island. Our friendly groupers, follow us there and also investigate it.

It was a great day with our friends the groupers!

We enter the aquarium today.

Kersplash! A giant stride off the back of the boat brings us into the aquarium. We descend over sand, where the boat is tied up, make our way over to the wall and drop over the wall. The wall goes down forever, but we only descend to about 80 feet.

Very quickly we meet the resident reef sharks. Our dive master says they are like dogs, looking to be fed the lion fish that are speared. They can smell them and have learned that they can find the lion fish on the end of a spear. We are followed and escorted by 3 or 4.

Reef Shark

We meet critters we are familiar with and some we are not. We are always excited when we discover a new fish or creature. We see a Flying Gurnard on the sand bottom and the dive master disturbs it so it will open its pectoral fins as it swims away.

Flying Gurnard

We dive and snack and dive and lunch and dive again. This is life in the aquarium.