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Last
updated 18 November 2007
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.
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 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. And hosting and domain costs have been
more than met by introducing advertising in what I hope is not an overly intrusive way.
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