Just west of Portie, we slip through a tiny gap in the bush between the road and the sea. He drives slowly, and I sit on the bonnet with a machete, chopping our way through everything that's grown since someone last took this route. Each swish of the blade unleashes an intense green aroma into the fruity warmth as we inch past jackfruit trees and coconut palms and out onto the wild, windswept bay.
The sand, banana-pale elsewhere, is an elegant charcoal grey, making the surf seem so white it's almost luminous.
We find skinny sticks and scrawl our sons' names into the sand, our scribbles finding black beneath the surface and turning to velvety ink.
Lucky tides must keep the plastic from this beach - instead, it's scattered with small smooth branches battered soft by the sea and logs as large and sensual as Henry Moores.
We dive into the sea - darker and cloudier here than the turquoise we're used to, womblike and warm. As the sun melts westwards and the silhouettes of palms turn black, we float in the darkening water watching the bats flit through the banana leaves and listening to pebbles clinking underneath the waves.