Captain's Blog
The occasional ramblings and musings
of Captain Barefoot on the subject of nudism/naturism, impractical fashion, maintaining this web
site, or whatever else comes to mind. A
look back in time
Some time ago, in an early entry on the
Captain's Blog, I moaned about how the early version of Captain Barefoot's
Naturist Guide was evicted without notice from its original home on Geocities.
Geocities was closed down altogether during 2009, and a group of internet
archivists have created something called the
Wayback Machine which provides access to Geocities
pages. Captain Barefoot's Naturist Guide is no exception.
Snapshots of the site from 1999 (three years after it was launched) until 2006
are available. The design now looks very dated, not all the images are
reproduced, and of course it's impossible to edit. But it was certainly
a joy to discover!
The wonderful Wiki world
The Captain came back from Greece
determined to do something about the Guide. It had started to become a
worry - I simply did not have time to keep it up to date. The brainwave
was to turn it into a Wiki, so that the site could be updated directly by my
many contributors. The idea was that the Wiki elements would be
seamlessly connected with barefoot.info, over
which I would retain full editorial control. Finding a suitable wiki
host was not difficult, though I was careful to get assurance from the hosts
that a naturist site would be deemed to comply with their rules. It
needed a bit of work to design it, but the new site was officially launched on
1 November - not normally the busiest time of the year for updates - and I sat
back and waited with trepidation to see what would happen. So far I
think it's a notable success. At the time of writing (end of February
2010) the site has approaching 70 members, with more joining all the time, and
updates and amendments are already being made by members. I'm really
looking forward to seeing what happens during the summer season!
Since launching the page I've added
detailed guidance about how to edit the Wiki pages
and how to submit pictures. And, inspired by a
couple of emails I've had recently, I've added a page about
going barefoot.
Time
passes
It has been a while since I've revisited
the Blog, and the Captain has been even further "off piste". We had a
delightful week in Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands, and discovered a
fantastic clothes optional beach at Risco del Paso. I should think
three-quarters of the people there - away from the windsurfing school - were
naturists. When the tide came in, if you were sitting at the back of the
beach, a lagoon would form that you could wade through to get to the sea.
And you could walk nude for miles to the south-west past the headland at the
end of the beach. Particular fun was the ascent of the huge sand dune
halfway along the beach that reached to the top of the cliff with a little
lookout hut on it. No issues about making the climb naked.
Clambering up the dune was easy, although at the top the surface was a bit
stony and it was slow going in bare feet. But the view was great, and I
sat happily in the little hut admiring it for some time before heading down
again. Populated but not overcrowded, Risco del Paso was one of the best
beaches the Captain has had the pleasure of visiting
And in we also made it back to the Caribbean, to a small
naturist resort on the Dutch island of Bonaire, by the name of Sorobon Beach
resort. It was quiet and civilised and a delightful place to stay,
on a much smaller scale than Club O, although swimming in the sea was a little limited because of the shallowness of
the water near the beach, and the constant trade winds took a little getting
used to. But you could wade for a few hundred yards out
to the reef and enjoy excellent snorkelling au naturel. It
was one of those places where nudity is expected during the day and optional at
night, and nobody cares if you have dinner or drinks
 at the
restaurant with no
clothes. And the wildlife was great - bananaquits (locally known as
sugarbirds), pink flamingos (if you were up early enough to see them fly over), and
magnificent frigatebirds, to say nothing of the occasional iguana.
 However,
this is a tale with a sad ending. Not long after our visit, Sorobon Bay
was taken over by new owners (the people who run the windsurfing centre next
door), and they have announced that 2010 will be the last year of naturism at
Sorobon Bay. This will be a great disappointment to the many loyal
visitors who have been going back to Sorobon year after year, many of them from
the Netherlands. The Captain thinks the non-naturist Sorobon Bay will
struggle to compete with all the other "ordinary" resorts on the island, most of
them aimed at the scuba diving market. A great shame.
The most recent Greek excursion proved something of
a disappointment, if I'm completely honest. Not only was it relatively
expensive for Brits because of the Euro exchange rate, but the weather changed
earlier than expected in September. Fantastic though Plaka on Naxos still
is (and we had one blissfully still day there) , it isn't ideal in high winds.
And we flew via Mykonos and spent a couple of days there - overcrowded,
over-priced and now over-rated. I won't be rushing back to Mykonos.
Going off piste ...
I'm sometimes asked whether I ever go on naturist
holidays to places other than Greece. Well, disloyal though it may seem,
for the last couple of years I've made it to other countries, though it didn't
stop a visit to Greece both years too.
Last year the Captain and the Captain's Mate saved up
and flew off to Club Orient,
St Martin. It was fantastic. (Though expensive). You stay in
a chalet, and you can either cater for yourselves (the on-site shop, where
most of the customers go naked, is perfectly adequate) or take meals on site.
No need to wear clothes anywhere on the site. Apparently, some visitors
manage to stay naked from the
 moment
they arrive until they leave a fortnight later. Even the roads are
covered in sand so it is easy to walk everywhere barefoot. And there is
the most wonderful golden, sandy beach, sheltered by a barrier reef from the
worst of the Atlantic swell.
Among delights to be sampled are the nude cruise on a
catamaran to a nearby uninhabited island - it included a high quality lunch
served by the boat's captain who was wearing a bow tie (and nothing else), and
a hilarious session where all the participants were covered in mud - it's good
for the skin, apparently. Morning walks, as the sun rises, in the nude
along the entire length of Orient Bay beach (though as other resorts wake up
we were encouraged to remain within Club O). Dining and dancing in the
nude in the restaurant! It was a fantasy fortnight. We'll be
saving up to go back! This year we made it to
one of the naturist resorts in Corsica, set on what is claimed to be the longest
(official) naturist beach in Europe. We stayed in a self-catering chalet
at Bagheera, which is also an enormous
naturist camp site. The accommodation was nothing like the
class of Club O. But the beach was superb. A walk to the far end of
the marked naturist section, and
back, took the best part of an hour and a half.
Men's
legs (aka What Not to Wear Part 2)
Following from my theme
of impractical swimming garb, this seems to be the summer when men's shorts have
finally descended below the knee. So now we have the sight of men in summer
clothing
with only their calves exposed. They look ridiculous.
Tennis players are at least partly to blame. Rafael
Nadal appeared at the French Open in trousers (I won't call them shorts) that
extended to only a few inches above his ankles.
What is the point? Surely the idea of shorts is to stay
cool (in the temperature sense) in hot weather. Are we now so conservative that
we can't stand the sight of men's legs?
Conversely, women's summer clothing has continued to go
the other way, with some pants and skirts now so short you wonder why they
bother (yet I bet the girls wouldn't be seen dead on a naturist beach).
Footnote
Oddly, the conservative trend doesn't extend to
footwear. I've seen more young men on London's streets in open sandals and flip
flops this soggy summer than I can remember (some of them also wearing the
ridiculous long shorts mentioned above). Personally I have no objection, and
like wearing sandals in warm weather if I can't be Barefoot. But the trend
- apparently that knees should be covered but feet exposed - defies any logic!
Top
travel websites
Captain Barefoot's Naturist Guide found its way into a
listing of
readers' favourite travel web sites in The Times Online in December 2006.
Thanks to Lawrence Thorington-Jones for the nomination!
What Not to Wear
 A
year or so ago the Captain had the not wholly agreeable experience of spending a
late afternoon on a textile beach having just arrived at a favourite Greek
island (there being no time to go to the nearest naturist one before sunset).
It was a while since I'd had to bother with a costume, but it was either that or
a trip to the shops with the Captain's Mate. After a hot day's travelling
it seemed worth the sacrifice for a swim! Have you
seen the latest beach fashions for men? My ancient and
ill-fitting Speedo swimming trunks (yes, I confess to possessing a pair) looked
very much out of place and attracted some odd looks. All the men and boys
were wearing "swim shorts" - generally speaking just like ordinary long shorts -
with the legs extending to just above the knees, and in some cases lower.
When they emerged from the water they were flopping damply around the wearers'
legs in a way that looked uncomfortable to say the least. How such an
impractical garment could become fashionable is beyond me. Of course, it's
not usually a problem for us nudists ...!
 Copycats laid bare
I suppose imitation is the best form of flattery.
But I must confess to a certain irritation when text and photos lifted from this
site appear on other sites - even if they are presented as promoting naturism.
The least they could do is ask permission, or even acknowledge the source.
A few years ago my attention was drawn to a site -
beautifully put together, if you like that sort of thing - with greyscale images
of nude women in the background - which reproduced in full the entire text of
the site. On that occasion I complained to the host and the site was
withdrawn. The current ones can be found easily enough using the main
search engines - but I'm not going to link to them from here.
 Yahoo Geocities
In 2006, after 10 years of being happily hosted, Cap'n
Barefoot was unceremoniously dumped from the Yahoo Geocities hosting site
without notice. The excuse, when I enquired, was said to be nothing to do
with the site's content - but anyway, the upshot was that the site went offline
for a few days and had to be relaunched - at some expense - with a new host and
domain, and without even the luxury of a "This site has moved" page.
Looking back on it I now think it was a blessing in
disguise. The move provided the incentive to update and redesign the site
- a fairly creative activity, in fact.
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