12/29/2013, 7:45 pm


Day 8 started like most, get up and listen to it raining outside. I won't lie, the amount of rain is starting to put a damper (pun) on our plans. Its not my favorite thing to be constantly searching for shelter. Anyways....After breakfast we drove up to Ivanhoe's guest house where we were able to reach Albert, one of the rio grande raft guides that a couple people here recommended to me. We agreed on a time the following morning, then after a stop for take out coffee at Dekals and another for snacks and refreshments we were heading down along the coast again. Although I was kind of planning on driving to Long Beach to have a look, we came upon the turn off to Winifred beach, and by the way, there is a sign but it is easy to miss. I pulled off the highway, and since it hadn't rained for at least 15 minutes we decided to follow the road and check out the beach. As long as you drive very slow the road isn't too bad, might be sketchy getting out up the hill if it happened to pour just before you wanted to leave, I thought as we crawled down the last steep section. When we pulled in you could see there were a few people around, but not a bit crowded. First vendor to talk to us was renting lounge chairs. He wanted 500J each, and I am sure I could have gotten them for less I got us each one. I figured since there was no entrance fee, plus his car was pretty beat, I would just give him the 1000.
We set up, wasn't really a sunny spot since clouds filled the sky. It was still very warm though and it wasn't long before I donned my snorkel gear and headed into the sea. It was invitingly warm, and the reef not too far offshore keeps the waves pretty small. I headed out, and you could see as the water got deeper there were quite a few sea urchins, but nothing near shore to worry about. The reef isn't much but I saw a wide variety of fish, none too scary. Biggest one was perhaps some kind of trumpet fish. It was around 18 inches long and the diameter of a Canadian loonie. There was a very cool flat fish (like a halibut, but only about 12 inches long). He was cruising along slowly about a foot off the bottom but as I got close he settled on top of a rock a bit larger than he was. His colors matched the sea bottom perfect. The only thing that gave him away were his googley eyes sticking out.
After drying off my wife decided to go out too. We had earlier figured we wouldn't abandon our stuff to go that far offshore together, too much stuff we didn't want to lose. So she swam off and I took a short stroll down the beach just to check out the scene. Looks like a really good place to hang out and spend the day. Had one guy approach me, and it wasn't long before I figured out we met have at Boston beach a few days earlier. He explained he was carrying some pretty heavy stuff so I agreed to let him roll me a big chonger. Shortly after that wife is back and just as we think about lying down again the sky open us, and I mean hard. We huddle under a big tree but that only helped for a couple minutes. We hadn't planned on eating yet but the small cookshop right close had a couple dry spots just calling us. So we ordered some food and ate, hoping it would let up. Finally it did and we went back to our loungers and water logged towels. That was the second last downpour. On the next one we had a better plan, just go into the sea and enjoy, which it seemed everyone else on the beach did. Took some good pics of that, will post later.
We never got hassled by vendors at all, its a great place and might go back, see how it goes. When we left we were in a group of vehicles and there were a couple times I thought I would have to back up for another try but our little rental car pulled its way through. Back to the hotel for a shower, couple beers at our bar, then cheap good supper at TJ's.
We got told of a big party up the street thenext night (tonight), but can't hear anything yet.
PS, I forgot to mention, Natural Mystic One, nice name lol, the guy that had the heavy stuff, did have heavy stuff. Best I have sampled in PA.