Crystal Crescent Beach

Tonight the air is warm and still and you can hear the steady breaking of waves on the beach over on McNab’s. Yesterday was also warm and Crystal Crescent Beach was crowded, but more importantly there were waves then too since Hurricane Danielle had passed offshore and we were getting a little of her effect rolling in on Sunday afternoon.

Crystal Crescent looks like a Mediterranean beach with its white sand and turquoise water, but it’s not the greatest beach around for bodysurfing. It is, however, a fairly short drive from our house, so that’s where we set up yesterday for a picnic, castle building, and some swimming and playing in the waves. The problem with Crystal Crescent is the fact that it has a slightly steep slope below the high tide line and a bit of a trough where yesterday’s waves were breaking.

Years ago I bodysurfed there after a major hurricane had just passed and huge waves were crashing into the beach with long gaps between. The rides were great, but sometimes you ended up being tumbled into that trough where you might get a few abrasions from the tiny pebbles that accumulated there. You expect after a day like that to have water dripping out of your sinuses for a while and to have to tilt your head and shake it out of your ears. However, that time my left ear didn’t clear over the next few days, and I ended up having our doctor flush out a small pebble from Crystal Crescent that was resting against my eardrum and advise me to wear a bathing cap next time I went bodysurfing.

Yesterday the waves were good, though not massive, the best ones about two metres where they broke. I didn’t have a bathing cap, and I did get tumbled into the trough of pebbles, had to dig them out of my ears and bathing suit, and ended up with a bleeding elbow, but I had a number of really good, really fast rides.

Toby stayed in longer, riding wave after wave, providing perfect demonstrations of exactly when and how to catch a good wave. He would ride the crest with his hands cutting through the foam, and land in a mix of sand and bubbles in the shallow water, only to head out again to catch the next wave. He wasn’t bleeding when he finally stopped, though his chest was red with abrasions, and he said his shoulders hurt from being thrown around, but he was grinning when he talked about his great rides.

We took A. out in her lifejacket past the break and rode up and down on the roller coaster waves that kept rolling in. She loved being out where none of us could touch, just swimming around and riding those great waves before they broke.

Tonight I’m listening to the waves breaking across the harbour, swallowing to make sure my ears are clear, checking the weather, thinking of all the jobs we have to do, and wondering if we’ll make it out to Martinique Beach tomorrow, where the surf will still be up, the slope is good, and the rides are long.

The season is short here; I think we’d better just do it!