The Baths

Taking William's advice, we changed our schedule to head to the Baths in the morning instead of the afternoon.  That was a good decision, because around 11:30am, as a cruise ship group descended upon it, the Baths became busier than Grand Central Station.

It's a stunning national park.  Giant boulders, some as big as small houses, are strewn on top of each and spill down to the water.  That creates natural pools, as the water rushes in -- but because it is not the ocean, we were safe climbing around and going into the pools.  Carly led the way climbing the rocks, while Torie, Maddy, and I weren't far behind.  Anne, TJ, and Toni explored a little, but not too much.  Carol drew the short straw of guarding the valuables and taking the photos, but I don't think she minded too much.

The rock scramble proved to be quite a good workout -- and quite tiring too.  We really had to work to maintain control on the slippery rocks that required wedging in or balancing (not a strong suit of mine) to make it up the next rock.  My regret is that I didn't have the camera with me, although it would have been banged up -- would not have been practical.

Once we hit the dead end -- no way up, we slid into the water and swam around the rocks.  All around us, large ugly black crabs scuttled on the rocks.  Outside of the baths, there were dozens of anchored boats, bringing their dingies closer to the Baths before swimming into the beautiful beach.  At $3 per person, it was a bargain excursion for us.

I found a rock that we could climb from the water, and I jumped off it a couple of times, and Maddy jumped as well.  We found other climbable, jumpable rocks.  Eventually we came back to the beach and set off on the next great adventure.

We took the overly popular trail through the caves to Devil's Bay.  It was great -- except for the back-ups as people were both going and coming back.  There were tight squeezes, ladders, rope climbs on slippery sandy rocks, and even a magazine shoot going on in one of the cave's pools.  Once we finally reached the other side, we promptly set out to swim and try to climb rocks.  Carly gave her parents some consternation by not staying with the group (Torie, Maddy, and I) so they had go searching for her.  She was trying to climb a rock.

All in all a great time, even if we had to set up road blocks on the way back so we could get through the choke points.  By the time we got back, Carol's position had been overrun by smoking Europeans.  We rescued her from her beleagured situation and a hasty retreat from the maddening crowds.