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Swimming
- Thread starter GramChop
- Start date
Andynap is right, St Jean, East (right) side of the beach is the best place. This is where the sea is (almost) always flat, protected from the winds, no swell, no big waves (like in Saline) and no reef to hurt your knees (like in Lorient). Shallow water and no boat (like in Colombier). Perfect!
Jelly fish are mostly a summer problem.
If you like to swim in swimming pools, you can try the municipal pool (in open air) in St Jean (close to the stadium). 25 meters long, clean and obviously no jelly fish. Jean-Marc the instructor is very nice guy too. It's open to the public during specific hours only. Best thing to do is to stop by and inquire about the opening hours. Entrance is 3 euros.
Even though through my previous occupation I had the privilege to dive in St Barths every day during 5 years, and still love being in the sea, I occasionaly enjoy swimming in the swimming pool, if I purely want to exercise. No salt is a definite advantage for the eyes also....
Jelly fish are mostly a summer problem.
If you like to swim in swimming pools, you can try the municipal pool (in open air) in St Jean (close to the stadium). 25 meters long, clean and obviously no jelly fish. Jean-Marc the instructor is very nice guy too. It's open to the public during specific hours only. Best thing to do is to stop by and inquire about the opening hours. Entrance is 3 euros.
Even though through my previous occupation I had the privilege to dive in St Barths every day during 5 years, and still love being in the sea, I occasionaly enjoy swimming in the swimming pool, if I purely want to exercise. No salt is a definite advantage for the eyes also....
stbartslover
Senior Insider
Our favorite...off Shell Beach.
Caroline and I often spend lazy afternoons along the cliffs/rocks...swimming for hours back and forth in the pretty bay w/dark turquoise water.
DoBrazil for a drink, toes in the sand...nice music...about as good as it gets in my opinon.
Simply: wife happy = I'm happy.
Caroline and I often spend lazy afternoons along the cliffs/rocks...swimming for hours back and forth in the pretty bay w/dark turquoise water.
DoBrazil for a drink, toes in the sand...nice music...about as good as it gets in my opinon.
Simply: wife happy = I'm happy.
MartinS
Senior Insider
If you get stung the first thing to do is remove the little stingers that the jellyfish left in you. If you look at the sting area you should see the stingers, but sometimes you may not see them if the jellyfish was really small. You can rub it, roll in the sand, wash it in the seawater, blow on it, ice it or whatever. But it
MIke R
Senior Insider
true story..not a joke...very relevant to this thread..LOL
Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana .
He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an
E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2
FM in Ft. Wayne , Indiana , who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won.
Hi Sue,
Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.
Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling
down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all .
Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.
As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to
the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool.
So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature.
It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is
taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and
I've used it several times with no complaints.
What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose
and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit
with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.
Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to
itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse.
With in a few seconds my butt started to burn .. I pulled the hose out
from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what
had happened.
The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish
couldn't stick to it However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate
When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding
the jellyfish into the crack of my butt.
I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with
Five other divers, were all laughing hysterically.
Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three
agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes
before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompress
ion.
When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass
helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of
laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber.
The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut.
So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much
worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt.
Now repeat to yourself, 'I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.'
Now whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish bad
day?
May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!
Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana .
He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an
E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2
FM in Ft. Wayne , Indiana , who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won.
Hi Sue,
Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.
Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling
down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all .
Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.
As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to
the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool.
So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature.
It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is
taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and
I've used it several times with no complaints.
What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose
and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit
with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.
Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to
itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse.
With in a few seconds my butt started to burn .. I pulled the hose out
from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what
had happened.
The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish
couldn't stick to it However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate
When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding
the jellyfish into the crack of my butt.
I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with
Five other divers, were all laughing hysterically.
Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three
agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes
before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompress
ion.
When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass
helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of
laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber.
The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut.
So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much
worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt.
Now repeat to yourself, 'I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.'
Now whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish bad
day?
May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!
NYCFred
Senior Insider
In my younger days, I played lifeguard at a county amusement park in Rye NY called Playland....lotsa fun.
The drain system at the pool was antique. couldn't handle 'debris' that would inevitably collect on the bottom, so once a week one of the lifeguards would pop on a facemask attached to a hose to a compressor, a lead vest, and take a lead weighted push broom down to literally sweep stuff into the drains in the deep end.
One morning it's my friend Gil's turn. I'm standing on the pool deck w a couple of other guys, he's down below sweeping away. I put my hand in my jacket pocket, and find a joint left over from the prior evenings festivities...
The air intake for the compressor is sitting there...just kinda looking at me.
BINGO. one match, joint goes into the compressor air intake and is INSTANTLY sucked down. Gil is on the receiving end of the bong hit of his life.
Ya hadda be there...LOL no snopes needed for this one.
The drain system at the pool was antique. couldn't handle 'debris' that would inevitably collect on the bottom, so once a week one of the lifeguards would pop on a facemask attached to a hose to a compressor, a lead vest, and take a lead weighted push broom down to literally sweep stuff into the drains in the deep end.
One morning it's my friend Gil's turn. I'm standing on the pool deck w a couple of other guys, he's down below sweeping away. I put my hand in my jacket pocket, and find a joint left over from the prior evenings festivities...
The air intake for the compressor is sitting there...just kinda looking at me.
BINGO. one match, joint goes into the compressor air intake and is INSTANTLY sucked down. Gil is on the receiving end of the bong hit of his life.
Ya hadda be there...LOL no snopes needed for this one.
The owner of La Cave du Port Franc told us he wouldn't put his feet in the waters of Grand cul de Sac, never mind swim there, because, as he said, "...you know...it's a lagoon".
When I asked, what about he kite surfers, he rolled his eyes and said what would you expect, they're all crazy!
So all of you people paying the big bucks for the beach-side Guanahani, swim on the other side of the peninsula. ;-)
p.s. Lorient can be very peaceful
