March 28 - The Rock and Tons of Haitian Plastics

We headed to the shore in the morning with Rock Beach in our sights. The beach was a couple of miles walking but we needed the exercise after our leisurely sail yesterday. We stopped in the local tourist office which had extremely helpful and friendly workers who gave us suggestions for Bahamian restaurants and other beaches to consider. Most required a car which we might rent another day, but for now we took a nearby road east. When we saw "the rock" we knew why this was the tell-tale land mark for which the beach was named.

We headed immediately to the rock, parts of which looked like they would collapse in a strong storm, but it has survived so far, so on we went to climb up on it.  The beach also had a small barrier reef which created two swimming pool like lagoons at low tide. We went for a swim then headed back to the beach to relax.

There was, sadly, lots of the typical plastic debris on the beach. One piece of plastic pipe however had been bent over in to an arch. This gave Harry an idea.  Influenced by his childhood TV watching of Gilligan's Island, he found some more useful pieces of plastic tubing, some bamboo (for the full Gilligan's effect) and pieces of plastic twine.  Before long he had completed a frame and tied our beach towels to it, creating a handy shelter from the sun.  He also later upgraded it to include a bench seat. 

We later wandered down the beach where the rocks created one of the pools. To our great dismay we kept finding tons and tons of small plastic bags floating in the water and washed up in the weeds at the high tide water mark on the beach. They were all very similar, many had no identifying marks. We collected many of them along with other larger pieces of rigid plastic and relocated the plastic trash above the high tide mark. There we found a few plastic pouches that were still marked with Port of Prince, Haiti. They had been single serve plastic pouches of water!  On our last trip we heard that the plastic was mostly attributable to Haiti but now we had our own first had evidence.

After walking the beach and enjoying the water and a little leisurely reading, we packed up and walked back to the dinghy, and from there back to Juno for dinner and bed.

"The Rock" and Harry's Gilligan inspired sun shade