Honeymoon 2.0: Part VII

Alternately titled; Our Last Full Day in Paradise.

We had a number of activities we could have done during our week in Bermuda, and we bandied about with the ideas of parasailing, snorkeling, or kayaking.  We settled on the kayaking, and Friday morning we scooted down to Grotto Bay resort to rent ourselves a little boat for two.

Mr. Chili had it in mind that we would paddle out to Whalebone Bay, so we pointed our little orange kayak out of the harbor and made for the beach facing the sea.  I have no concept of how far from the resort the beach was, but it certainly wasn’t too far – we got there in under 20 minutes, and despite being in the waves, the trip wasn’t difficult at all.

(this picture was taken from the beach looking in the direction from whence we’d come.  It was too wet on the trip in to take the camera out of the zipper bag I’d thoughtfully stashed it in, and besides, I was too busy paddling to take pictures, anyway)

We rounded the corner to the beach to discover a boat training people to scuba dive, but the beach was empty.  We paddled ourselves up onto the sand where I began my customary search for sea glass and my beloved squeezed himself into the snorkel, mask, and fins we’d rented and made for the waters of the cove.

(how pathetic am I that I, just today, figured out that I can put my own videos on youtube?  Honestly; I am ridiculous)

Mr. Chili’s behind that rock on the right at the beginning of the video; just as I started the recording, he disappeared from my view.  The kids on the beach on the left were part of a school group (Bob, can you IMAGINE the field trips these kids get to take?!) taking a survey of plastic found on the beach.

Once Mr. Chili had grown tired of the leaky mask and the too-small flippers, we loaded back in the boat and headed back to the harbor, past Burnt Point Fort (which we visited earlier in the week.  To be honest, I wouldn’t have known it for that – it looks very different from the sea), and floated back into the quiet – and impossibly blue and green – water of the bay.  I am sorry that I wasn’t able to get pictures of things under water – we floated past about 4 different varieties of coral growing from rocks, and Mr. Chili encountered a ginormous angel fish in his swimming at Whalebone – but none of the photos I took of the water did any of it justice.  Note to self; the next time we go somewhere tropical, we’re going to buy an underwater camera before we leave.

After we returned the boat, we took a little side trip to one of the caves at the resort.  None of the photos came out particularly well, but you get the idea.  It was cool inside (though not as cool as I expected it to be) and there was a ladder that encouraged swimming in the underground pool in the cave.  We dipped our toes to discover that the water was a good 20° colder inside than out.

From there, we made a quick stop to the restrooms and discovered, on our way out, this wondrous thing:

That’s literally hundreds, if not thousands, of fish in a little less than two feet of water, happily milling around.  It was fascinating to watch them, just lazily swimming here and there.  As we watched, a gentleman who works at the resort came to the bridge with a pair of older ladies in tow.  He had taken the last of one of their lunch plates and brought them to the little cove to show them the fish.  With an impish little grin, he looked at me and asked, “Have you ever seen a fish eat a french fry?”

I hadn’t then, but I have now.  He gleefully tossed in the last of one of the ladies’ fries, then the bit of hamburger bun she hadn’t finished.  The fish made short work of all of it.  No wonder they were happy to be where they were; it seems that, in addition to the odd fry here and there, they are regularly fed at 10 and 2, much to the delight, I suspect, of all who happen to be near when it happens.

We took our leave of the resort after that and headed back through St. Georges to get to the Alexandra Battery Bay park.  I had heard through channels that this was an exceptional beach for sea glass, but I didn’t hear about that until AFTER we’d already been to St. Catherine’s on our anniversary, so we scooted right by it two days before.  Mr. Chili graciously agreed to go all the way back to that part of the island (because, you know, it’s so far) and we had a lovely excursion picking up more treasure.

I have never in my life seen sea glass in such quantity.

When I’d gathered all that my pocket could hold (quite literally) I took in some of the breathtaking views

Doesn’t that just make you want to breathe?  I did a lot of deep breathing on this trip – there were views like this around every corner.

After a quick trip to feed the scooter’s belly, we decided it was time to feed our own.  We motored back to the Swizzle Inn and had another order of BBQ chicken nachos.

YUM!

We were thinking of doing a little more shopping – we had yet to get the girls presents from our trip – but had forgotten that, unlike in the States, everything in Bermuda shuts up tight at about 5:00 unless a ship is in, in which case some stores stay open later.  On one night of the week, Hamilton puts on a sort of street fair for the cruisegoers; that was Wednesday, though, so our trip into the city yielded us little in the way of shopping opportunities; well, the liquor stores were open, but that not being a suitable gift for the little people (and the fact that we could get literally every variety of rum offered in Hamilton in our local packie without the hassle of customs or finding space in our luggage) we hopped back on the scooter and headed for home, deciding that we’d go out in the morning to procure presents for our favorite ladies.

I’ve one more update for you – for only having a couple of hours on the island on Saturday, we had quite an exciting adventure.  Bear with me through one more vacation post, if you please.

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