Hidden Beaches

Today, I decided to take the bike to the other half of the island.  My journey would take me down south to L'Union Estate Park.  

Sunday Mass

I could hear the locals singing their hymns through the open doors.

As I entered the state park, I happened upon an old cemetery.

A large granite boulder serves as the home for some tortoises.

They like to crawl around in the mud and hang out.

Here they are growing some coconut trees on a plantation.

A little further down is an area by the sea reserved for wedding ceremonies.

Here, I arrived at Source D'Argent beach,  I is supposed to be the best and one of the most photographed beaches around.

I decided to go for a bit of snorkeling.

The water was clear and beautiful, with almost no people around.

Floating on my back with a shot of Source D'Argent beach.

One of my favorite shots of the day.

 Now, I knew there were more beaches along the way.  I looked around for a path, but was unable to find one.  Some old German guy and his wife from Garmish bid me to sit with them.  I did, and had a nice chat.  As they got ready to leave, I saw another couple that were clearly looking for the trail to the other beaches as I was.  I went over to them.  They were a nice Israeli couple living in Kenya.  I decided to follow them.

The path went through the dense jungle and was really difficult to follow.  

It was dark, rainy, and muddy.

It was also slippery and treacherous in some places.  There were deep, narrow gaps between the narrow boulders.  I was afraid of falling between them and getting stuck or breaking a leg.

Finally, we found the first small beach!

We had the whole place to ourselves,

Tiny snail colonies on the rocks.

Another beach discovered!

Rain storms moving in.

We decided to keep going to see what we could find.

Crabs!

I think this was the last beach to be found, Anse Marron, but couldn't be sure.  By this point the weather was pretty bad, and the tide would be coming back in soon.  We wanted to wade our way back to our starting point, rather than try to go back trough the jungle again.  No!  Please, not the jungle!

Working our way back.

Photo courtesy of J. Segman

It was low tide, so the water was never deeper than our waists. Photo courtesy of J. Segman

Success!  We found our way back!

 Next, we decided to take out bikes over to the other side of the island to see Grand Anse Beach.  We were told there is a strong riptide there, so swimming not really recommended.

Grand Anse Beach

Just goofing around for some pictures.

Suck it in!

Photo courtesy of J. Segman

Photo courtesy of J. Segman

Beach time over. It was time to head back to our hotels.

The locals playing a game of ring toss.

Nice end of the day with a beer and new friends.