Long Beach, or Unai Dankulo beach, is just south of the Blow Hole. As it's name says, it is a long beach running along the east side of the island, towards the north end. In addition, there are a number of smaller beaches (some say up to 14) north of the main beach--little pockets of sand in-between the more prevalent rocky cliffs that are typical of the east side of the island.
Today Terri and I decided to visit long beach and to see how many of these little beaches we could find. We went just before low tide so that it would be easier to get from one beach to another, but it was still a little more difficult than we had predicted, especially getting back.
We carried our snorkel gear and I put my small camera in two plastic bags so that I could carry it with me. Like other areas of the island, the coral shelf extends out quite a ways from shore, so the water isn't very deep. You can walk all the way north along the cliff line to find these small beaches. However, the ocean is very rough on the west side of the island. The only thing that helps is that the large waves break at the coral edge rather than at the shoreline. Then smaller waves come in from there.
Although it is possible to walk to these small beaches, you do get wet! Whether it is a rogue wave or water coming back on you after crashing against the rocks, you do get wet! After visiting the first couple of beaches, we left our backback and other items and proceeded north with just our snorkels. It was a tough walk--the water is generally knee to waist deep, but waves coming in keep you off ballance. Most of these small beaches were very dirty and littered with debris and garbage brought in by the tides. Most of the beaches on the island are kept very clean, but these are difficult to get to, and would be very difficult to try to carry stuff in or out, so they have a build-up of debris. It would be very difficult to bring a boat around also, due to the coral and shallow depth of the shelf.
After visiting a series of small beaches, we finally hit an area where there was a much longer cliff line before another beach could be seen. In addition, the coral shelf was not as wide here, so the waves were much stronger and looked more treacherous--so we decided to head back. That is when the hard part came.
We had not noticed the strong rip-tide that was moving up the shoreline, perhaps because it was going in the same direction we were. But now that we had to go against this current, it became very difficult. At some points along the way the tide was moving so swiftly it felt as though we were trying to walk up a fast moving river. If we had been swimming instead of walking, there is no way we could have fought the current, and we would have been swept out to sea!
It was more difficult moving south, and took much longer, but we arrived safely back where we had stored our backpack and other stuff. Although everything was completely soaked when we got back, the camera did ok. We sat on the beach and took in the sun and the sights while we rested from our trip.
Afterward we drove north to look for papaya trees that were low enough to pick some fruit. Papaya seems to be the most plentiful fruit on the island. There are mango trees and some banana and necktarine trees, but they are harder to find. We picked a few papaya as we traveled around to the east side of the island, and then headed south to go home. Our new yellow 75cc scooters worked very well and were much better for these longer trips.
We got home without incident, very tired, but happy.
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