Beach, Boats and Bonfires

by Rachel
for Saturday, July 27th

drinking from a fresh coconut on swing at Muriata Beach

I woke up earlier than the rest of my family to see the sunrise. It was beautiful to watch the pink sky reflected in the clear blue water. It was also my first good view of the beach, since it had been dark by the time I arrived yesterday. The ocean is also lined with fishing houses. In the dark they look like floating lights, but in the daylight you could see the houses with boats going to and from them.

We ordered breakfast from the people who worked at our "resort". Everyone but Christian, who order eggs, ordered crepes. The crepes came with bananas, limes to squeeze for juice, coconut, and cinnamon. It was really good.

Not long after breakfast, we went snorkeling. We had to go at lowtide so that we wouldn't need to swim too far. One of the workers, who is native to the island, took us. We swam out to see some coral and lots of fish swimming around. We all absolutely loved snorkeling. The water is really clear, so it was easy to see lots of fish. We also brought a kayak that Christian climbed into when he got tired. He had lots of fun paddling the kayak around.

We ate pizza for lunch (Taylor's favorite!) and Christian and I enjoyed relaxing in a hammock while we waited for the pizza to cook. He told me all about minecraft (his favorite game).

waiting for lunch

After lunch, we got to enjoy the beach. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves the whole day. This huge beautiful beach with white sand and clear water had almost no one visiting it. I am used to beaches being crowded, so this was a nice change. The place where we stayed was pretty empty in general. We saw a couple other people, but most of the other cabins looked empty. So we enjoyed the beach bar and the homecooked meals and the snorkeling and the beach without a bunch of other tourists. I ordered a fresh coconut from the beach bar and the guy went and got a coconut and cut it open right there in front of me. It was so good. We tried stand up paddling for a while, but it was so windy that you could only move in one direction. None of us were able to paddle against the wind and the current so we would ride the boards one way and then walk them back and do it again. Christian LOVED the paddle boards. We also laid on the beach in the sun and swam in the ocean. 

relaxing on the beach

stand-up paddle boarding

Before dinner, Mom, Taylor, Sarah Ann and I went on a walk on the beach. The sun was beginning to set at this point and it was just beautiful. For dinner we ordered the beach barbeque (except Christian who ordered chicken nuggets). It was delicious. There was locally caught fish and chicken and more food than we could ever possibly eat. 

a sunset walk with the beach all to ourselves again

local fisherman paddle these boats out to their fishing houses

After we finished, they lit a giant bonfire on the beach for us. They told us it was small, but I thought it was giant! Then we enjoyed the stars. Since we have been in cities for most of our trips, there haven't been very many stars that we can see, so I was excited to see so many stars.

our beach campfire