For Christmas Eve Day we went to Lac Bai (Lake Bay for the anglushers.) This is a sheltered bay on the east side of the island. It is the light blue area across the island from the blue dot marking parents house. It is surrounded by the green of mangrove forests, where a lot of the island fish breed.
Because the entirety of Lac Bai is only waist deep, it is useless to the island's divers, so it is used primarily to contain the windsurfers. It is a good place for windsurfing, steady wind and shallowish water.
There are a number of beach bars/windsurf schools/resorts here, with lounge chairs and drinks at the ready. This was my plan for the morning.
Normally there is a strip of beach between the areas, but the moon has made the tide as high as it gets here, and most of the beach (and some of the lounge chair legs) are currently submerged.
The lack of beach to walk on did nothing to deter my mother, who immediately set off to the less inhabited side of the beach like something was chasing her. It might have been the alien girlfriend my dad pointed out. Island bitches be skinny.
The beach was basically an obstacle course of sand bags, children, and tourists. This is not hyperbole, there was one little guy who had built himself an impressive moat in which to catch people. It half filled with water every wave.
We had to slog through thigh-deep water half the time. I am happy to have not dropped my camera. The other end of the beach lacks resorts and shade, and is mostly used by natives. I posted a bunch of pictures of it last time, so i am skipping most of it here. There are a few interesting things on this end. If you feel the need to place a fake flower before the Virgin of the Valley, you can come here. Im not sure what the valley is. I was mostly disappointed that she doesnt dispense fortunes for a quarter.
The other exciting thing over here was a one armed sandman. He is probably a veteran of the snowman wars of '06. Or maybe he donated his arm to the virgin.
He stared longingly out to sea, but no one wants to help a handicapped sandman to windsurf.
My parents watched fish from the docks. I headed back towards civilisation and alcohol.
We wound up getting a table at the Hang Out Beach Bar at Jibe City. The table was just over the shoreline on a dock, and shady enough for me to survive a few hours of watching windsurfers.
The bay filled up while we were there. Most of the people out seemed to be from the cruise ships and were novice sailboarders. Even the best we saw were unable to manage a turn at the ends of the bay. This is sad because it meant we couldn't watch the pros do tricks. We did see one guy dancing with his sail, but mostly it was downed sails and low speed crashes.
Both Santa and Mrs Claus made appearances, probably getting ready for their big night.
Jibe City's halls were also decked.
The beach was full of kids too young for lessons. A whole barge of them hung out right under our table.
The weather started getting rough. These waves are behind the breakwater, so only a fraction of their force gets into the bay itself, but rainclouds were looming.
We ate lunch then got out of dodge before the rain really hit. Santa was arriving just as we left.
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