16. Savannah Bay (Mick)

We went half-way up the island today to Savannah Bay, which we’d been told was great for snorkeling. Clare was first in but the weather meant the water was very cloudy (all the sand shaken up by the storms I think) so we couldn’t see far and after moving a few reefs around the bay by kicking them with her bare feet, she lost interest.


We had a nice morning swimming and reading, not much more to report than that really, other than that we had to keep our eyes open for the deadly Manchineel Trees. There was a warning nailed to a tree on the edge of the beach that described the 20 ways that these trees can hurt you – if you chop it the sap will burn you, if you burn it the smoke will blind you, if you eat the fruit (“which is tasty” – how do they know?!) it will choke you, if you stand under it and it rains it will drip acid onto you. It didn’t include a picture of this most fearsome of God’s creations but after 15 minutes reading the small print the description matched the tree the warning was nailed to – we took flight immediately but were lucky to escape with our lives!

So back to the pool, where the boys spent the whole afternoon larking about in the pool and were just getting the hang of "corpse photos" when thankfully the film on our disposable underwater camera ran out ...