Swimming Pictures

As promised, here are some photos from my swimming expedition on last Sunday.  The beach we went to was right near my apartment and is called Batt's Rock or Paradise Beach.  Either name works apparently.  Anyway, its a really long, deep beach that is hidden from the main road.  You have to walk along a somewhat sketchy path to get there, but its worth it.  Lots of families go to this beach on Sundays for a picnic and swim, which is why there are benches all over the place.  The Four Seasons was building a massive resort along the beach but construction stopped a year ago due to the financial crisis.  Rumor has it that construction will start again around December/January, so I am going to try fitting in a couple more visits before the beach gets ruined by the construction noise and dirt.  Here are some photos of the beach:

The first half of the beach is lined with trees, which makes for some really nice shady picnic spots.  Only problem is that the trees produce a poisonous fruit that is deadly when eaten and burns the skin when its juice (or rainwater coming into contact with its juice) touches your skin.  Still, on a nice dry, sunny day it makes for a very nice shady stretch of beach.

The second half of the beach doesn not have trees, so it is wide open to the sun.  Cruise ships and tankers dock off into the distance near the Bridgetown port.

Since we went late in the day we were there for a really nice sunset.  Nothing beats a nice beach + sunset!

Here's some photos of the friends I went with.  The first photo is of Elvis, my friend from Jamaica who is studying Internatinal Trade Policy and is seen here playing with the poisonous fruit (he's a real joker).  The second photo is of Brooke, who is from upstate NY (near Lake Placid) and is studying sustainable tourism.  She wants to grow her and her boyfriend's B&B business, so she is down here to learn some tricks of the trade.  She is the one who guided us to the beach.

Finally, here are some photos of the Four Seasons construction.  As you can see from the above photos the site runs down the entire length of the beach.  It is truly massive.  While I can understand why they wanted to place a resort on such a nice beach I am worried that doing so will ruin the family-friendly nature of the site.

So that was my swimming experience last Sunday.  Today Nora and I ventured out to St. Nicholas Abbey where we toured the beautiful grounds and sampled some of their amazing rum.  I took a bunch of photos which I will post soon, so stay tuned!

Tomorrow is the state funeral of the recently deceased Prime Minister David Thompson, so everything is being shut down.  As such there isn't a whole lot for Nora and me to do.  Right now the plan is to spend a day at the beach.  Despite the beauty of Batt's Rock, I think we are going to go try another beach nearby called Fitts.  A former Fulbrighter has recommended the beach to me many times so its about time I go try it out!