A Few Steps on the Beach

Well, it's time for me to take you along on a little jaunt to the beach, just downhill from my Sweet.

First off, let's get the obligatory photo of moi out of the way. I had a lovely Thai lady take this while I was doing my morning beach walk today. Picturesque setting, no?

Just to the left of the resort is a long pier where the activity goes on all day. I think it quiets down at night.  There's not much beach at all between the resort and the pier; the beach begins in earnest after you walk up the stairs to the jetty, and cross the road, and go down the stairs on the other side.

But first, I must show you the sea almond leaves on this side of the pier, where the sun-worshiping guests of the resort hang out all day and turn brown, or red, as the case may be.

Early in the mornings it's been fairly overcast with a very calm sea. But the clouds from the pier were gorgeous with the morning light on them yesterday. Can you spot the little piece of rainbow on the left edge of that part of the cloud that sticks up higher? That was my gift yesterday morning.

Here. Now you can see it a bit better!

Okay, now we're on the other side of the pier. The sand is fairly course and, as a British lady observed with some umbrage as she passed me on the beach this morning, "a bit dirty." In other words, there's a  moderate amount of trash that's washed in from the sea. But not enough to spoil a morning walk for me.

See? It's really quite lovely, when you look at it in the afternoon sunlight. You can walk a short kilometer down the beach before you get to a rocky outcropping which I decided was impassable after climbing a little ways on it, barefoot. I managed to get a little cut in my heater-grill scar on the bottom of my foot. That wasn't the issue; it was the big spaces between the rocks and the amount of clambering that would have had to be done to get around the point to the next beach.

A ways down the beach are a couple of coconut groves, reminding me of the endless groves along the beaches in Phuket when I was a kid.

And this morning, there was that hard-working monkey again, heading up the tree to harvest more coconuts for his intrepid master. Or was it the monkey who was intrepid? No matter. The lively little fellows both seemed rather absorbed in their tasks.

It was high tide in the morning as I walked along. The casuarina tree needles provide a frilly frame to the point that juts out just past the resort.

Here's my turning-around spot.

And there, right in front of my turning-around spot is a guy enjoying the morning stillness from his kayak. It was still a bit overcast from last night's rain-and-lightning storm.

I looked down and saw these two little fishies mirroring each other's posture as they pointed out to sea. Yep, they're under water. At first I thought they were lizards, and they made me think of fish growing legs and walking out onto the land. Me and Darwin. Just to be transparent, I'm not one of his buds, even if I see some of his points.

Partway back up the beach I saw this guy out checking his nets. I wondered if he was fishing for tourists, for the market, or for his breakfast.

By the way, just after I saw this guy I doffed my caftan and went for a little swim. The water was never deeper than my shoulders, at least where I swam, and it was clear as could be. I noticed lots of funny little "coiled rope" formations on the sand on the bottom. Turns out it's some kind of animal dwelling. It looks kind of like they pooped out a coil of sand, with a hole in the middle, shaped like a Utah beehive (you know, the ones that are on all their road signs). I don't know if they were made by crabs, or some kind of shell, or [yikes] a water snake of some sort. Everyone was staying home this morning.

Yesterday's walk brought the gift of the rainbow in the clouds. This morning's walk brought me five more gifts. From left to right: A top shell, a pretty orangey bivalve, a cowrie, a limpet, and another cowrie. Pretty, huh? I hope it's not a crime to bring them home with me.

Coming back to where the tourists soak up the sun by the little beach at our resort, here's a long-lasting couple watching the sunset last night. So far this island hasn't dished up what you'd call spectacular sunsets, but they're not shabby, either.

And while the lamps of the night sky come on with the approach of darkness, I leave you with a picture of the pretty lamps down at the hut where you check out kayaks and towels and such. I have decided that lamps are much prettier when hung in groupings. And there's probably an object lesson in there somewhere, but I shall leave it at that.