Rishard Khan

Hun­dreds of peo­ple flocked to beach­es across the coun­try pn Good Fri­day to soak up some “vi­t­a­min sea” as they kick start the fes­tiv­i­ties over the East­er long week­end.

In east­ern Trinidad, beach­go­ers en­joyed the Man­zanil­la beach fa­cil­i­ty which was re­opened just hours be­fore on Thurs­day.

Mara­bel­la res­i­dent, Sarah, told Guardian Me­dia she was not on­ly ec­sta­t­ic the fa­cil­i­ty was re­opened but al­so im­pressed with the work done.

“The work is very ex­cel­lent. To me, this is a place that fam­i­lies can come to­geth­er. I’m see­ing chil­dren bathing, I’m see­ing life­guards you know on pa­trol. My fam­i­ly is very hap­py and...this is the first time we are here and we will con­tin­ue com­ing here,” she said.

Arou­ca res­i­dents Mar­sha Bridge­lal and Sum­intra Sital were grate­ful the fa­cil­i­ty was re­opened in time for the East­er long week­end.

T&T’s flag­ship tourist des­ti­na­tion, Mara­cas Bay, was as packed as you’d ex­pect it to be for a pub­lic hol­i­day that pre­cedes a long week­end. A num­ber of peo­ple vis­it­ing the beach were tourists like Mar­i­on Dambrine and Maud Van Phat from France who Guardian Me­dia caught up with at the Mara­cas look­out. Dambrine said they de­cid­ed to cap­i­talise on the last day of their busi­ness trip to the is­land.

“It’s a re­al­ly beau­ti­ful place and I think we would be re­al­ly hap­py to come back here for our project,” she said, com­ment­ing on her ex­pe­ri­ence on the is­land.

On the beach was Michael San­tuc­ci, a Flori­da res­i­dent who said he was in T&T on va­ca­tion with his Tri­ni-born girl­friend.

“To­day I am en­joy­ing Mara­cas beach, which is fan­tas­tic. We don’t see moun­tains like this on our beach. It is phe­nom­e­nal, fan­tas­tic. I’m fast­ing to­day from meat be­cause it’s Good Fri­day but I’m hop­ing to eat a lot of meat to­mor­row,” he said.

For lo­cals, how­ev­er, it was the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty to un­wind and kick-start their long week­end.

“It was just a whim,” Trinci­ty res­i­dent Klay­ton said.

Vis­it­ing with his part­ner, he said it was their first time at Mara­cas since Au­gust.

“Last night we were talk­ing and were like, aye we could just get up ear­ly and go up.”

He said they would be spend­ing this week­end to­geth­er with din­ner, drinks and a movie al­ready on the plan.

For oth­ers, like the El Do­ra­do Po­lice Youth Club, the beach was the pot of gold at the end of a hike that be­gan in San­ta Cruz. Ac­cord­ing to act­ing ASP, Kevin Mar­tin, it’s a trip they fre­quent­ly make as they take “a lot of pride in the beach, a lot of pride in health, and a lot of pride in na­ture.”

He said they cap­i­talised on the fact that chil­dren were home from school yes­ter­day and par­ents wouldn’t need to go to work to­day to host the hike. Mar­tin’s 10-year-old daugh­ter, Ne’yah, said the hike start­ed off chal­leng­ing but grad­u­al­ly got bet­ter as the beach drew near­er.

“It was hard at first but then when we reached on top of the hill and we were go­ing down, I en­joyed it. The view was beau­ti­ful,” she said.

Asked if she was think­ing about the beach the en­tire hike, she said jok­ing­ly: “I thought the beach bet­ter be worth it.”