Monday, 20th January
Anse Chastanet
With no pre-planned activities, today was a day off!
We are beginning to notice a pattern in the weather. During the night I heard what I imagine were torrential downpours; these seem to give way to intermittent showers around dawn that eventually, more or less, peter out. Midday seems to be the sunniest part of the day and then showers return around four o'clock.
During one of the breaks in the rain, around 8:00am, we make a dash down to the Treehouse restaurant for breakfast. Together with our increased knowledge of the weather pattern we are taking a more Caribbean attitude to waterproof clothing - if it rains we just get wet. It soon dries off.
After breakfast, (I recommend the waffles and syrup, made healthier with a generous application of almond fakes) we walked along the beach to Anse Mamin. Yesterday we crossed an insignificant stream running down the beach without even noticing it. This morning we decided on a detour rather than wading through it,- reinforcing my impression that it must have been torrential rain overnight.
Along both beaches, the one directly accessible from the main part of the hotel and Anse Mamin are thatched beach umbrellas with two sunbeds under each that provide shelter not only from the sun, but surprisingly good shelter from the rain.
We sat under one of these umbrellas and instantly a member of hotel staff was there asking if wanted a drink. On this occasion we had lime squash (but not squash in the English sense!).
Today was the day that Jo decided we needed to go snorkelling! So after our drink we returned to the main beach and made our way to the scuba centre. We were kitted out with fins, face mask and snorkel, before finding a vacant umbrella and spot on the beach to try out our skills. The first realisation this was going to be tricky was walking down the beach to the sea with flippers on. (Only a matter of metres, but we felt the gaze of fellow guests all the way!!) Once in the water the fins became an even greater obstacle to movement as they now had a life of their own dictated by the incoming and outgoing waves. None of this was helped by the fact that once in the water there was a fairly steep drop into deeper water with the once benign waves now behaving like a raging storm. Although I got to the deeper water I thought Jo would struggle and returned to offer assistance. This proved easier said than done. Getting into the water with fins was one thing, getting out was entirely another. I ended up shuffling backwards on my backside totally out of control. Once I eventually reached Jo I realised I had grazed my right elbow on the sharp sand, and whilst it would be an exaggeration to say it was gushing I could definitely see blood. (I don't know the grades of sandpaper, but it's not called sandpaper for nothing, and raw volcanic sand is at the rougher end of the scale!) We both retreated to our umbrella with our tails between our legs - but at least neither of us had drowned!
The snorkelling kit was returned to the scuba centre and then we were off to the Beach restaurant for very late lunch - gazpacho soup for me and vegetable filled flatbread for Jo.
At some point during the day we ran into the general manager of the hotel (Henri Arnulphy) whilst he was walking up the hill, and we down. Like all the staff he greeted us and asked how we were and if everything was OK. Having established he was the general manager, and in response to the question about how things were I said I had one comment and one suggestion. My comment was that I thought the Anse Chastanet website did not really do the hotel justice, the hotel was far better than the website conveyed; he agreed and said that they were, in fact, revamping the website with better photographs, etc. My suggestion was that for the rum tasting that they should hand out small cards with the recipes for the mixes we had made - after sampling the rum drinks I couldn't possibly remember the recipes! I did, however, say how good the session had been and how good the member of staff that held it. He may have been buttering me up, but thought it was a good suggestion and that they could also do the same thing for the cookery demonstrations. In passing I also asked how many staff the hotel employed. I was impressed: for 79 rooms (including 30 at Jade Mountain) they employ 585 staff. Asked how they all got here, he said that they all came by staff bus (or by water taxi?) and that he was the only member of staff that lived on site. Bearing in mind the 2km of track that is amazing.
The afternoon was spent doing nothing much, lounging on the beach, reading in Jo's case, me dozing.... Back to the bar for a (non-alcoholic -- Bentley) sundowner.
Dinner was memorable for the fact that the Treehouse was full when we arrived and we had to wait for a table, but Jo was cheered by a delightful glass of Malbec.
