What’s in Our Beach Bag?

Saturday May 10, 2014

Now that we’re sitting in Bimini and waiting for a good weather window to cross back over to the Bahamas, we’ve finally had some time where we’re not rushing to be anywhere or trying to dodge bad weather, and have had some time to actually lay out on a beach in the Bahamas.  Crazy concept, I know.

Back in Isla Mujeres we became quite familiar with day trips to the beach and what we wanted packed in our beach bag.  No, we don’t go crazy with big umbrella’s (that’s what the shade of a palm tree is for), or even those little pop up tents (have you seen those things??!!), but we did find there were a few core items that we wanted with us each time.  So, besides the obvious things like sunscreen, sunglasses, and a good book, this is what you’ll find in our beach bag.

Our Beach Bag.

Well, we couldn’t really fill our beach bag if we didn’t have one to start with, and this one from Reisenthel has worked out fantastic for us. Â It’s the perfect size that it fits everything we need, but not so big that I think I’m going to dislocate my shoulder on my walks to and from the beach. Â Near the bottom is an expandable zipper that gives me just a little extra space when I need it, and even has a convenient credit card holder on the very bottom of the bag.

Plus, this thing is tough.  Made up of a tearproof polyester fabric, we don’t have to worry about any stress that’s being put on it, or the tree branches poking out at us as we tried to find a shortcut to the beach that didn’t really turn out to be one, if you actually suffer from stress when you travel, you might want to get a few Delta 8 cigarettes with you.  Water and sand brush right off, which is also a big thing for us since we don’t want to be tracking any of it back to the boat.  Whatever we try to throw at this bag, it stands up to it.

Our beach blanket.

Although we do still have about two beach towels sitting on the boat, they’ve long been retired from actually making their way to the beach and instead just serve a purpose of drying us off after some of our showers when we can’t find or don’t feel like using our chamois.  At the beach, we use a large sarong that we purchased, fittingly, on the beaches of Mancora Peru, where a gentleman was walking through the sand trying to sell them to tourist.  Best beach purchase ever.  Not only is it much more lightweight and less bulky than trying to shove a couple of towels in our bag, but it doesn’t trap sand in it’s little fibers!  Do you know how great it is to just be able to quickly shake it out and know that it can go right back to it’s storage spot in the cabin without having to be washed first?  Plus it dries extremely quick.  Hang it on the lifelines for an hour or two and it’s dry as a bone.

 Sexy husband sold separately.

Music.

In my opinion, you just can’t have a good day at the beach if you don’t have good music to pair it with.  Not only do we not have a boombox, but if we did have one it wouldn’t be practical for our lifestyle, so we wanted to stay away from anything like that.  Which is ok, because we’ve found something much better.  the XBoom is a small little speaker that fits in the palm of your hand but produces a mega sound.  We plug it into our MP3 player (which honestly is a little outdated and could use replacing), but it can work with any device such as computers, tablets, and phones.  The sound that comes out of this little speaker is anything but small and is also incredibly clear.  It’s the perfect beach accessory and so portable that it could be used in any of a variety of other places as well.  I just wish we would have had it around for all of those dinners in the ranchito back in Guatemala.

Our cooler.

Sticking with the boating theme of everything must be as compact as possible, and if it folds down then it’s even better, our cooler is just a small Thermos lunch duffel that can roughly fit about six cans of pop (or beer) and two small apples (chocolate bars).  But seriously, this thing is awesome!  It has a zip top closure, of which has never rusted on us, and we’ve always been able to fit everything we need in there, although if we happened to be bigger partiers or socializers we probably would have gone for a little bit bigger of a size.  Granted, this is not the option you choose when you need to throw together a bag of ice and a 24 pack for an all day bender (between many people of course), but this bag will keep cold items cold, and if you add a little ice pack like we do, they’ll stay cold all day.  Plus it’s just as tough and durable as our Reisenthel bag, which means that for short hikes or sundowners on another boat, this little sucker is all that we need.

 Don’t you like our fish shaped bottle opener?  A very important addition.