CLEARWATER BEACH 2015

We all walked back to Clearwater. I believe the name of the restaurant there is called Gombys. I knew they had food and drinks, so we decided this would be the place we hung out for awhile...or the rest of the day. I did have something else pictured in my mind though. I thought it was just a little shack type stand, but it ended up being really big.

There was just something about this place that I didn't care for. I'm not sure. It just felt cheap and trashy to me.

There didn't seem to be anyone there visiting. A few employees, but none of them spoke to us at all.

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We checked out the prices for food and drinks and the family was just unsure of it.

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We just weren't feeling this place. I'm not sure what it was, but I did know it wasn't my "paradise" that's for sure.

As the family stayed up at the shack to make up their minds and order, I decided to head down to the beach to take a look.

This is what I see....

They had a dozer out there pushing sand around. Maybe from the hurricane? But it definitely didn't seem like a usable beach to me. I certainly didn't want my child running up and down the beach with this thing moving around.

To the other side there was a small section of beach. But I wouldn't say it was too pretty.

We were kind of disappointed after seeing this and the family met up with me on the beach. They informed me that they decided not to order anything from up there and the employees weren't too friendly.

We contemplated what we should do from here and where to go. I could tell they did not want to hang out at this place.

When the HOHO bus dropped us off, we had inquired when they would be back to this area and how often they ran. Now I know from previous research that it is supposed to run once an hour and I believe it was at the 45 minute block...as in 12:45, 1:45, 2:45 and so on. However, the driver told us she would be back at 2:45 and 4:45pm. (I believe it might have not been running as often this time around because of the rain and weather and there wasn't as many people brought to this area today that normally comes). Hmmm, it was only 12 noon. :eek: We knew there was no way that we wanted to hang out at this place for another "almost" 3 hours. No way at all!

The only other option, I told them, was to walk to the bus stop somewhere down the road and catch the #6 bus. They all agreed that this is what they wanted to do. We'd just catch the bus back into St George and find a place there to eat and away we went.

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The grounds here at Clearwater are actually pretty big. I can see why they decided to make this the primary beach over in this area and put a food place here. Plenty of room to spread out.

They did have a playground for the kids.

We seen a building toward the end of the place.

​I decided to explore it and it ended up being a restroom. Now I know I have read in the past that they only allow customers that eat and drink there access to their restrooms. However, this building isn't anywhere near the restaurant area. Hmmm. Strange.

We decided to check it out since most of us needed to use the restroom and...it was unlocked.

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Maybe it wasn't actually part of the restaurant and part of the park instead. I'm not sure.

We finally came out to the road that runs between the water and the airport. I knew we were heading in the right direction.

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Now I had done a little bit of research prior to going here, but it had been months ago when we first booked this cruise. I knew that the road curves around and I knew that there were bus stops toward the lighthouse. I remember even looking one up because, at the time, we had thought about catching the HOHO to the lighthouse and checking it out, then on to St George (after our trip to Clearwater). But, I never really figured out exactly where the bus stop was. Things get interesting...

So here's the LONG road you walk down from Clearwater.

You could tell who was in a hurry to get to their destination (and they had no clue where that destination was actually)

And you could tell who wasn't in a hurry...(I bet you all could have guessed who that would have been...the one that's late to everything)

Obviously from the pictures, I'm located in the middle of them all doing a leisurely walk.

The airport runway is to the left of us and the water to the right.

​I had also ask if this area was anything like being at Maho and watching the planes come in over top of you. The reply I got was "no"!

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We would experience plane after plane coming in over top of us...and the answer to my question is still a definate "NO" from me as well. Not the same at all. They don't fly in low like Maho, but still a fun experience to watch as we walked by. These planes came quite frequent too.

The road was pretty long.

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The kids being kids and bored during the walk, stopped and played tic tac toe on the road...geesh (Actually Kenny started this, which gave us a chance to catch up to them...then Kendra took over).

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We arrived at the end of the road finally.

A lot of signs telling us where we had been...but none telling us where to go.

As we stood at the corner of the road, there was 2 directions you could go. To the left would take you along the airport on another very long road with not much in site. The other would take you up the hill, where you couldn't really tell what was up there, but I did know that was the direction of the lighthouse and the little town.

I said we should go to the right, Kenny said to the left. Well, I knew there was a bus stop somewhere around the lighthouse, I just didn't know how far. So, Kenny won and we decided to head down the long road along the airport.

I started taking pictures of the intersection road signs so that when I got home I could actually look up where we had walked and see it on Google Earth.

At one point we felt so confused and just not sure what we were doing. We stopped. We stood in the road. There was traffic. We decided the only right thing to do was to flag down a local. A work truck was coming and he was our lucky prey of the day. We flagged him down and ask where the closest bus stop to catch the #6 was. He had no idea....:eek:

BUT...he was very nice and said "It has to be around here somewhere because I see the buses driving around here on the streets." He could probably see the look in our eyes and said "I'll tell you what, I'll circle around and see where it's at for you and come back." Wow, how nice of him. He said "STAY HERE!!! DON'T MOVE. I'll be right back." Off he went in his little work van.

We all looked at each other and noticed that he was heading toward the hill where I said I thought the bus stop was. I said "see, that's the way he went instead of the way we were headed. I just know it's that way and we might as well turn around and at least start walking that way until he catches up to us." Yea, I don't listen to directions well.

Before long, he pulled up behind us saying "You don't listen very well do you? I said stay put" and he was laughing. Then he said "Now turn back around and walk the direction you were going and the bus stop is down, around the corner, and in town." Sigh. He tried to explain to come to a street, turn this way, down there...um say what? Well, at least we knew there was one in the direction we were headed...even if we got lost again, we could ask someone else for directions.

Then the driver said "I tell you what, one of you come with me and I'll show you and bring you back and then you can show the rest." Say what? How nice....or...someone was about to get kidnapped. LOL I would volunteer my husband. haha. The rest of the kids said "if you could just pile us all in there, we don't require seats and can even hang on the roof" hehe...of course they were just joking...or were they? He laughed and said he would get in trouble for having passengers in the work van and we completely understood.

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The hubby got into the van with the guy we didn't know, I gave him "that look", kissed him goodbye and assured him that I would take good care of our daughter as she grew up. Of course he squinted his eyes at me and my last memories of him would be a cold glare from his eyes as he pulled away.

Since THIS time we DID know that we were at least headed toward a bus stop, we started back tracking and walking in the other direction again...while we all contemplated if the hubby would come back. Some said "So do you think he'll come back? Or do you think he'll have him drop him off at the end of the street so he don't have to walk that far and meet us there...because that's what I would do." LOL Other's said "You think it was safe to get in the car with a stranger? I'm glad it wasn't me." Others said "So what would you do if he don't come back?" Courtney, which the the weird one of the bunch said "So, do you think you'll ever remarry?" LOLOLOLOL Geesh people.

So I'm not a widow and we didn't spend the rest of the time in Bermuda with a search party...he returned and had to walk with us. (Although he did admit that the thought of just meeting us at the end of the street did cross his mind, he didn't want me to worry about him).

We could see the building. The hubby had told us that we would come to a pizza place first and the bus stop was right across the street from there. At that point, the kids heard nothing about the bus stop or its location and the thought process stopped at the word "pizza". FOOD!...and off they went like they had just found new energy.

We made it to the Pizza place and figured we would grab a pizza to go.  Or maybe they served chicken instead? (Since there were so many around there).  Actually I'm not sure what kind of birds those are. Are the Bermuda chickens? They don't look like any of the chickens we have here.

Actually I'm not sure what kind of birds those are. Are the Bermuda chickens? They don't look like any of the chickens we have here.

We went inside and there was a huge line to order food. While we were standing in line, I took out my bus schedule and seen that it said the #6 bus runs at ____, well wait, we actually have no idea where we are at to know, but I was guessing it would be soon. I decided to step out of line and ask the lady at one of the counters and she said it comes around 12:40pm. IT WAS 12:35PM NOW!! Yikes! I told the kids that the bus was about to run so did they want to be on that bus or be eating instead? They decided to head to the bus stop and not take the chance. We would stick to our original plans and eat back at St George when we arrived.

We waited...12:40 came and went.

 We were still waiting. The last picture I took of us standing at the bus stop was at 12:59pm. I believe the bus probably came within 10 minutes of that. Of course the kids had the "See, we could have got a pizza to go and been eating at the bus stop" comments. Oh well.

I just wanted to add...IF any of you plan on doing the walk from Clearwater to the #6 bus stop. Here's our details of the timing (according to my pictures).

We left Clearwater, walking along the beach area, but still on the grounds, at 12:08pm. We arrived at the pizza place at 12:43pm. However, factor in the time we spent waiting on the guy to circle around and come back to tell us where the bus stop was and then walking back in the direction we came from and then turning back around again, I would say to cut at least 10-15 minutes off that time had we just kept walking.

So, it's maybe a 1/2 hour walk to THIS bus stop. Not really bad, just bad if you don't know where you are going and even worse when it's your first time. Are we there yet?

Here is a map I just made of the route we took. It's really simple.

Now I really wanted to know if I could find a bus stop up at the top of the hill. So, me being me, I went onto Google Earth and pulled down and "walked the street" along that route. I did find something that looked like a bus stop after you made it up to the top of the hill and started walking around the city area with houses. It was at the corner and there was a pole there. On Google Earth, it also showed someone sitting on a bench there, so I'm assuming it might be a bus stop. It's at an intersection. Here's a picture. Any thoughts? As you can see from my map above, I have marked this location on it as well.

We make it back to St George and the bus dropped us off at the main road. I knew exactly where I was at and we started to walk. We made it to Town Square again and I said "Hey, we could just take the HOHO bus we already paid for and head over to Tobacco Bay". Of course the first thing out of Kenny's mouth was "Does it have food?" After getting a definite "yes" from me, that was enough to satisfy him and back to the Beach Bus stop we went. We were there at 1:27pm.