Beach

I admit, writing for a beach blog, very few beaches take my breath away. Usually, as soon as I lay my eyes on a beach a sense of relief overcomes me and immediately a sense of reassurance, a sense that everything is, for that very moment [in my world], going to be all right. Then there is Playa Kenepa, on the western end of Curacao. Coming up on the beach I could not believe what I was seeing.

All the elements of ‘amazing’ were present: Cove – check, rocky outcroppings – check, soft sand – check, crystal clear azure waters – double check. In fact, it is so amazing that apparently another Caribbean island took a picture of Playa Kenepa and tried to market it as a piece of paradise found only on their island!

Playa Kenepa, Curacao

I was fortunate enough to see Playa Kenepa from three angles and each one was fantastic. First was from above. Walking towards the beach and seeing it reveal itself in between tree branches sent goose bumps up and down my neck and arms. It was as if I knew I had stumbled upon something special. The view from above was spectacular. Twenty-something feet above the water you could not see where the waves met the rock’s edge but you can definitely see the sandy floor and the coral rocks below. The view was overwhelming and I could not help myself, I needed to get down there FAST.

It was not until I broke the surface after my twenty-something foot plunge that I fully realized what I had just done. I remember thinking before leaping “Always aim for the darkest spot” and at the same time while in mid air “Where is the darkest spot?”

Once back on shore I looked out to the open ocean. My second view of Kenepa was perfectly framed by the two rocky cliffs that created the cove effect. I felt like I was in a TV ad, all I needed was a buzzing Blackberry to use as a skipping stone. There were people there, locals and tourists and some local proprietors selling snacks, beer and renting out beach chairs. A little touristy for my taste but the setting more than made up for it. I was fortunate enough be there on a weekday in the early afternoon, I would return to Kenepa later on in my trip only to find it swarming with people. The west side of Curacao is not as developed as the east where the majority of the population and tourists can be found so it is easily understandable that Kenepa was a hot weekend spot.

The most common mode of transportation to Kenepa would be by car but I wondered if there is a better way of getting to this place. I did – by boat.

From my studio overlooking Playa Grandi I noticed fishermen coming in and out regularly. Seeing as I was already on the west side of the island I wondered if I could convince one of the fishermen to swing around the coast and take me to Kenepa.

The boat ride was very relaxing and each time we came upon a beach it was like a surprise because they were all hidden way behind rock formations that were all made of dead coral. Needless to say, turning into Kenepa took my breath away, and once again I found myself in the water and this time waving good-bye to my friendly fisherman who just smiled, waved and shook his head.

By Sebastien Tobler

Colliding Continents

Today is a lazy day, a day for eyes closed and yeah. Mm-hmm.  Cold drinks with mint, this maybe that, who knows? Ice cream is too taxing for today, the way it melts so fast, which tells you just how lazy a day it is. Today I want a soft beach. Slack. Today I want to go to the Seychelles.

Better than bathwater. http://www.flickr.com/photos/8982863@N04/1984509590/

The very word is slow: Seychelles. And the best beach there is inarguably Anse Lazio, a beach that just sounds delicously lazy. Say it with me: Anse Lazio. Honestly the softest sand, fine grained and clean white. Shockingly clear turqoise water Indian Ocean warm and alive. Fringed by supermodel tall palms and Takamaka trees, the beach is a crescent shaped moon of paradise.

Mm-hmmmm... http://www.flickr.com/photos/8444772@N04/509817355/

Located on the northwest corner of Praslin Island in the Chevalier Bay, Anse Lazio is easily the Homecoming Queen of Seychelles beaches, if not beaches all over the world. Often included in top ten lists, this beach is perfectly situated for spectacular sunsets. Honeymooners flock here, as do families and travelers of all kinds. Due to the relative protection of coral reef, the water is ideal for swimming and snorkeling. Sea turtles are common, as well as fish of all types and color; the beauty below water easily matches that found above.

Sea turtle. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28220564@N07/2974405359/

To one side of the beach rise the craggy boulders of Pointe Chevalier. To the other side the island curves giving the crescent of beach a natural boundary, creating just the right illusion of secluded paradise. With the lush background of verdant jungle and the expanse of blinding white sand, the technicolor blue of water and sweet off-shore breeze, Anse Lazio is almost too much to take in, almost too much to believe. But close your eyes, yeah. It’s real. And I’m going.

A clichéd poem is bad. A clichéd love song even worse. And while a cliché is usually a perjorative term used to describe something that has been so overused as to render it hackneyed, I believe that sometimes a cliché is a very good thing indeed.

A clichéd gelato–what would that be? Hazelnut? Creamy? Slightly sticky sweet and thick? Today it is almost 90 degrees in my house–a hot one, and I would very much like the cliché of a gelato even though it is still before noon. But more than that I want to be on a beach so white tropical and perfect as to be called cliché. I want to be on Playa Blanca off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia.

Paradise. http://www.flickr.com/photos/37499479@N00/154137211/

Located on the island of Barú off the Carribbean coast of Colombia, Playa Blanca is the type of isolated paradise that helps sell Lottery tickets. With 3.5km of white sand and water as gentle and warm as a bath (that is, if your bath just so happened to be bright clear turquoise and salty), this beach is a dream. A beer commercial. This beach is a dream inside of a beer commercial inside of a mirage inside of a joke about tropical islands and mothers-in-law. This beach is a cliché and I have never so much wanted a cliché.

Aside from the physical traits of paradise, Playa Blanca also offers a faint feeling of being remote. A welcome change from the busier city beaches of Bocagrande and Crespo in Cartagena, here there are little to no vendors walking the sand to offer you juices, sunglasses or a massage. And while there are no real restaurants, either, there are several basic places where you can get fresh fish, lobster, crab, octopus, shark and sancocho de pescado (a type of fish stew).

Starfish. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pkmese/349295885/

The easiest way of getting to Playa Blanca is by boat. Small cargo boats leave from Mercado Bazurto, the big market of Cartagena. Make sure you are at the market no later than 9AM to secure your spot on board in both directions. Alternatively, most organized tour boats heading to Las Islas del Rosario pass by Playa Blanca and you can catch a ride with one of these. The trip takes about 45 minutes by speed boat or 2 hours in one of the regular boats, costing around 15.000 pesos.

So you will excuse me if I sign off now to close my eyes and think of Playa Blanca. White sand, warm turquoise water, palm trees and yes, even a small dish of hazelnut gelato at my side that seems never to melt. This is my dream, my own dog-eared cliché, in a house that is now 95 degrees without a pool in sight, from my lips to your ears: Playa Blanca. Go.

I am sick of writing about beaches I’ve actually been to: Northern California rugged, all sweet grass and ice plants, sand the color of wheat, full of fiber and good for you. Today I want fantasy, I want plumeria, pikake, flowers with blooms bigger than my belly. Today I want sand the color of a bleached blonde looking fake and not necessarily good for me. Today I want Tahiti.

Pretty please? http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiarescott/33505225/

When my husband was ten years old his mom and step-dad pulled him out of school for a year and they sailed to Tahiti. 26 years later they still reminisce about this trip around the dinner table, bring out photos of neon days spent snorkeling and berry brown. I don’t know how they did it: managed the money, life, a boy out of school, but they did and I hear about it all the time. And I want that, too, although I also want someone to manage it all for me. I am nothing if not pragmatic, although something tells me pragmatism and pikake do not a tropical mix make.

My bungalow, my dream. http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonyr31/2905452851/

I want beaches spun from sugar, boats that seem as if they are floating on air. I want air heavy with wet and the scent of flowers, I want to stay in a bungalow with a roof made of thatched pandanus leaves. I want this bungalow to sit low over the lagoon, and I want a glass floor so I can watch the sea-life swim beneath me: manta rays and sharks, sea turtles, dolphins, brightly colored fish and dark shadows of what I don’t know. I want a vacation that I could likely not afford, but this is my fantasy beach and here the thought of money or lack thereof is not allowed.

Teahupoo wave, the force of beauty. http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonyr31/2905452851/

Like most fantasies, I am not specific. Something tells me I want Bora Bora, but really I just like the sound it makes, booarah booarah, lazy like a long afternoon. I don’t know what beach really, what lagoon, I just know I want Gauguin’s Tahiti and not that of Marlon Brando. In my Tahiti I want to swim, I want to sun, I want to pull tropical fruits from the trees and push them straight into my mouth like a monkey. I want to forget. And something about Tahiti makes me feel as if it would be easy to forget, even if 26 years later I’d still be talking about it around a dinner table of pasta and bread.

As a writer it is very hard to admit this, but here goes: I am running out of ways to say that a beach is beautiful. Because lush palm trees? Check. Bright blue water as warm as a bath? Check. Miles of white sand stretched and yawning under jagged cliffs and across wild volcanic rock? Check, check and check-mate.

Mal Pais is a funny little town, although it has been a few years since I’ve been there and by the time you read this it might not be so little anymore. Located on the Southern Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, Mal Pais has yet to experience the explosion of development of its neighboring town just to the north–Santa Theresa. Although increasingly popular with surfers and travelers, Mal Pais has managed to retain some of its quiet and wide expanses of unspoiled nature.

The coast of Mal Pais is in many places rocky, craggy with coral and volcanic formations which make for stunning scenery set as it is against a backdrop of turquoise water. Where there is not rock, however, the sand is white and clean, sometimes scattered with miniature seashells perfect for beachcombers.

Yawning stretch at El Carmen. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24059087@N03/2285752062/

Playa El Carmen is perhaps the most popular beach. Bordering Mal Pais and Santa Theresa, this beach features softer rip tides and currents, making it more friendly for swimmers and beginning surfers. The beach is bordered by sand bars, though you should watch out for the odd rock outdropping at low tide.

Punta Barrigona is another breathtaking local beach, though this is a well-known reef break for surfers and inherently more dangerous. The same goes for Los Suecos located at the end of the road just above the Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve. The beach itself is tropical paradise at its finest, but do watch the rip tide and the surrounding reef.  

Where volcanic rock meets the reef. http://www.flickr.com/photos/henecarm/87205932/

Known as the “Hawaii of Latin America,” Mal Pais has much to offer a traveler with its sub-tropical scenery, a laid-back atmosphere and beaches that are nothing short of beautiful, even if the word “beautiful” doesn’t begin to describe this funny little town dotted with sand.

Caiques line the shore of Super Paradise. Photo courtesy of Novon at http://www.flickr.com/photos/novon/270185822/

View of Super Paradise as seen from the bluff. Photo courtesy of Alessandra O. at http://www.flickr.com/photos/alessandraorsi/2786049231/

If reclining is not your thing, however, then you must take a dip. The beach hugs a small deep bay of really the bluest water I have ever seen, and this is where I go no matter where I really am when I need to lower my blood pressure. I close my eyes and remember the slow lapping of waves, the way the crag of the desert meets the aqua no-way of the water, the distant hum of everything as my head submerges into the warm water of Super Paradise.

MS Freedome of the Seas, currently the world's largest cruise ship capable of accommodating over 4,300 passengers and 1,300 crew on fifteen passenger decks. It will soon be surpassed by the Oasis which will have a passenger capacity of 5,400 persons.

Many beautiful beaches, like many beautiful natural things in the world have a precarious relationship with us humans and our ways. Lately I have noticed that there seems to be a growing sentiment amongst lay travelers that cruise travel is somewhat eco-friendly. I beg to differ, in fact it is less eco-friendly than flying (for example) and the impact that the cruise industry has on beaches is something for all beach bums out there to fight against.

From a carbon footprint perspective, the amount of carbon emitted to enjoy a week long cruise is significantly more than simply flying round trip to specific destinations. Some luxury liners have the capacity to hold thousands of passengers. Assume that 75% of these passengers have to fly round trip to the port of departure, that in itself adds so much more to the overall carbon emitted and we have not even talked about the burning fuel yet.

Bunker fuel powers everything on board from the engines to all the entertainment attractions, gardens, water parks, wave machines etc. Bunker fuel is cheap and dirty, and as we add all these amenities up and paired them with the thousands of passengers on board, we can just begin to see the magnitude of the carbon emitted.

The carbon emission issue is simply the beginning. Accommodating thousands of people on a ship has a significant amount of waste associated with it. According to Friends of the Earth:

“In a single week, one large cruise ship can dump over 200,000 gallons of raw human sewage and one million gallons of graywater (polluted water from sinks, kitchens, and laundries) into our coastal waters. These polluted discharges contain bacteria and other harmful pollutants which can cause beach closings, contaminate shellfish beds, and harm sensitive marine life such as coral reefs.”

The United States has anti-dumping laws in place that prohibit luxury liners from releasing waste into the ocean within 12 miles of the US coastline. This is fantastic news for the US, but unfortunately the larger liners go into international waters where this law does not apply.

More and more people are taking cruises every year. The rates get cheaper as the liners get bigger and so does the waste. Many amazing beaches in the world have the ability to take our breaths away, hopefully we do not create the opportunity for our beaches to fade away.

By Sebastien Tobler of Colliding Continents

by Barbara Ann Weibel of Hole In The Donut

Historical photo of Wiblur Wright achieving motorized flight

The Town of Kitty Hawk has been the home to a number of unique facilities. One of seven original Lifesaving Stations on the Outer Banks was constructed on a beach opposite Kitty Hawk in 1874 and the US Weather Bureau located there in 1875-1904. But the village’s real notoriety is drawn from the successful flights made by Orville and Wilbur Wright in a heavier-than-air machine in 1903. Visitors are often intrigued by the fact that the world knows the site of the Wright Brothers flights to be Kitty Hawk, yet the National Monument commemorating the site of their flight is in the Town of Kill Devil Hills. To long time residents this is no mystery. When the Wright Brothers conducted their experiments, Kitty Hawk was the only incorporated town and the site of the only Post Office on the Outer Banks, from which the famous telegraph announcing the successful flight was sent.

A series of wooden walkways lead over the dunes leading to Kitty Hawk beaches

Today, Kitty Hawk is best known for its beaches – mile after mile of unspoiled shoreline where you can enjoy surfing, body boarding, bird-watching, para-sailing, kite surfing, and fishing in some of the best angling waters in the world. Or, just spread out a blanket, lie down, and close your eyes. Enjoy the sounds of the ocean waves crashing against the shore and the seagulls squawking as you soak up the sun on your personal patch of this sandy paradise.

The town provides 12 ocean beach accesses, two of which have bath houses with restrooms and changing rooms. Permanent lifeguard stands are provided from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend at three of the beach accesses, while roving lifeguards on ATV’s keep an eye on the rest of beach. Complete information about parking, beach campfires, driving on the beach, and other beach rules and regulations is available on the website for the Town of Kitty Hawk.

Walk over the dunes to gain access to mile after mile of unsopiled beaches fronting crystal clear Atlantic waters

The Outer Banks is one of the most popular vacation destinations on the Eastern Seaboard, not only for its beaches, but also because it offers great shopping, restaurants, attractions, family-based activities, and a wide range of accommodations to fit every budget.

Photos not otherwise credited courtesy of Barbara Weibel