Trunk Bay

Among my fondest and earliest memories of St. John are those of Trunk Bay.
Some say it is one of the ten most beautiful beaches in the world. Other's say it is the most photographed beach in the world. Imagine...sometimes I was the only person on the beach. One family story goes my mother's father gave my mother the cay for her twelfth birthday.

I learned to swim here, taking to the water like a fish. Don't I look confident, though? I remember that swimsuit, it was too big for me. The stripes were orange-red and white.


Or I could pretend I was skiing.

Something else I learned here was how to fish off the rocks with a hand line. The part I loved best was smashing a whelk and getting my fingers all gooey from threading the tender abdomen onto the hook.

Whelks are also good to eat. They live on the rocks where ocean and land meet. It was great fun to go whelking, scrambling over the rocks, barefooted, like a goat. To get the sand out of them we soaked them over night in fresh water. Then they were boiled after which they were easily pulled from the shell with a something pointy, like a nut pick, small knife or even a nail. After that the abdomen was pinched off and the soft mahogany colored operculum was pulled away. Then came the best part, dipping the "foot" in my grandmother's wonderful dipping sauce. They were a great hors d'œuvre.

The first fish I can remember catching were a doctorfish

and a squirrel fish.

I proudly carried them up the hill to the main house where I was taught how to clean them by Thelma. More about Thelma and her man Godfrey next Monday.

(Happy Birthday to Scott McKenzie.)