Just a typical day on Kwaj

What do we do on any given day here on this little island?

Mostly we work.

Which is a lot tougher than I thought it would be after retiring and traveling for the last couple of years.

But, it is all made up for in a moment when we remember that we get to live in this beautiful place, in the middle of nowhere, that is uncrowded by the tourist hordes and hippie backpackers.

Some days we are lazy and just stop by the beach after dinner to feed our little buddies.

This little guy loves cantaloupe…

Unfortunately so do all of his friends!

And later at night, they all come out for dinner. The fish isn’t the most popular, but they all go wild for some pork chops.

Other days, we ride bikes over to the harbor and watch the fishermen feed the sharks. They are pretty similar to the street dogs on the beaches in Sri Lanka. They just lay around all day and then spring into action for scraps.

There are a bunch of them hanging around. Mostly nurse sharks and black tip reef sharks.

They do get pretty excited!

Everywhere we go on the island, we ride bikes. Private vehicles are not allowed on the island. There are a few, but just for construction and moving materials around. It is such a refreshing thing to shed the worries that come along with owning and operating cars. We just pedal about on our rusty old cruiser bikes. There are no hills, and very little traffic to contend with, so they are perfect for the job, except for the twenty-five knot headwinds 24 hours a day.

Every day.

Bikes do take a beating here, though. The rust and corrosion can take a toll pretty quickly.

This is a pretty typical Kwaj bike. It is probably just a few months old…

We ride this road quite often. It runs along the lagoon side, up to the North End past Emon Beach and a bunch of great shore-diving spots and snorkeling spots.

Emon Beach. Most days, this is about as crowded as it gets. Occasionally there are a few less people. It always amazes me to live in a place like this and have so much uncrowded access to the most beautiful kiting, surf, beach bumming, diving, and snorkeling.

So nice!

These are just a couple of different views of the neighborhood around here. Somehow it manages to capture the mid-century military concept, but in a really pretty place.

This is our building: The Reef BQ is the long building on the right (BQ stands for bachelor’s quarters). There are several of these BQ buildings, and hundreds of actual houses. We each got a BQ because we are both on contract, so we share two neighboring rooms, one for the bedroom, and one for the living room (pictures of those to come someday).

There is only one bar on the island. The proper name is the “Ocean View Club” (sounds nice, huh?), but around here everyone calls it “The Snake Pit” or, just simply, “The Pit”.

It does have a nice view, and the back patio is okay. The bar itself? Well, not so much unless you really like drinks mixed with random mixers and whatever liquor they may have around at the time…

… and warm beer.

We have found a couple of cool spots to relax: the beach with the hermit crabs, and the beach with the toe-eating crabs, and…

… this really nice little chill out place up on the North End, right near one of my favorite kiteboarding spots. It overlooks part of the reef that we snorkel a few days a week. There is a really nice drop-off just out where the color changes, and we regularly see black tip and white tip reef sharks, nurse sharks, so many sea turtles, eagle rays, eels, and a million different types of fish.

A lot of our days end up with a great sunset on the beach, and a few of them with a great moonrise from another beach.

These are pretty good days.

Even if we have to work a lot.