May 25: Guernesy Island: last day

Previous: May 24

Last night's dinner at The Deerhound was as good as usual. Madame had a large serving of fish and chips, and I had their "liberation" burger (basically a bacon cheeseburger with spicy mayo). Fries were excellent, as is usual. Unusually, seven heavily tatooed biker gang members arrived for dinner right after we did: at least two were from "Full Boar" (Guernsey), a couple more were from "Devil's Disciples" (England), and the rest may have been from another club because they appeared to be wearing different colors—and obviously we weren't going to stare at them to find out. They were perfectly civilized, though we left before they'd been drinking long. A side of Channel Island culture we hadn't seen before.

Pronunciation note: "Petit bôt" is pronounced locally as "petty beau". Google is still failing to reveal the meaning of "bôt", so I'll have to wait until we get home for any further enlightenment.

Today we opted for a final hike that would keep us close to home and not prove too exhausting. Shoshanna wanted to dip her toes in the sea again, but not to outright frolic, we decided to walk town to Petit Bôt beach, which is 15 to 20 minutes down the hill on a moderate to gentle slope through the woods. Because there were no changing facilities and she didn't want to have to walk back to the hotel in a salt-crusted bathing suit, she settled for wading. (Locals changed behind a towel, in sheltered niches in the cliffs surrounding the beach, or (in one case) bare-breasted for a moment while changing out of a wet suit.

Because the forecast was for the temperature to exceed 30°C today, we set out not long after breakfast to take advantage of cooler air. Despite beautiful sunny skies, the temperature didn't quite hit that maximum, and there was a pleasant light breeze from offshore, so I got to hang out and enjoy the waves and people-watch without perishing from the heat while Shoshanna explored the water near the beach.

An attractive wading bird:

Interestingly, we were there as the tide was coming in. When we arrived, there was a large stretch of sand, probably about three times as wide what we'd seen during our previous visit. But because the beach is so flat right up to the gravel and cobble area, even a small rise in the water level caused the water to move a substantial distance up the beach. So I had to move our backpacks and Shoshanna's boots about 10 m up the beach every 15 or so minutes.

Freshwater flowing overland from the valley into the sea:

We spent about 1.5 hours enjoying ourselves with minimum exertion, other than the climb back up the hill to our hotel. Around noon, it was getting hot enough we decided it was time to leave. We stopped at the tea shop to grab a sandwich for later, plus a mint chip ice cream to sustain us through our hike back up the hill. Then we collapsed and hid out from the heat for most of the afternoon. Note that this doesn't mean we were actually cool; our hotel room lacks AC, so we were at the mercy of what breeze made it through the curtains. It should be much cooler later in the evening, as it was last night.

Early to bed tonight, as we have to catch a 5:40 AM cab tomorrow that will take us to the Jersey ferry at 6:15 AM for one last day in Jersey. That's our last day in the islands before we fly out to Heathrow and home again to Kingston. Blog posts may be a bit sparse the next few days as we relocate between cities and end up on a plane with no Internet access.

Next: May 26