Wake up, give Bubbles her morning scratches, workout and then coffee with a view.
After breakfast the plan was to pack up and go float at Galloway.
Every damn time, my breath is taken away at the beauty of this spot.
After we walked around a bit, Mike had to go get our food out of the car, I called it Ubereats Island style.
We hung out for a while, floated down the cut and did another sandbar beach walk.
I faded fast after all the sun, so we packed up and headed to the apartment. We decided to stop at St. Peters and St. Pauls Catholic Church to see if we climb the tower, sadly the doors were locked today.
The afternoon consisted of baking breakfast bars and Mike made fish stew for dinner. He also created a dessert to die for. He is now and forever in charge of dessert creations on vacations.
We sat in a different spot for sunset viewing tonight.
Another lovely day.
And for those of you have read these over the years, thank you from the bottom of my heart. However these blog posts at the moment have become a chore, so this is the last post I will perhaps make on a daily basis.
I needed something new to hike, I needed to return to New England hiking and I needed to get my hiking legs back. Off to the Berkshires we went to complete to easy loop hikes.
We arrived in Sheffield around 9:30 and while we loaded our packs on our back, a couple shared some trail advice and suggested we do the Yokun Ridge South Loop trail counterclockwise
. The loop trail started on the Charcoal Trail to the Walsh Trail with an offshoot to the Ridge Trail and back to the Walsh Trail. Our loop hike was around 2 miles and took us 45 minutes to complete.
We returned from the trail, crossed the road and did the Burbank Trail Loop. It was a little over 3 miles and took us about an hour and 23 minutes of mostly flat terrain.
Once we finished our trek, we sat on the wall in the parking lot overlooking a lovely lake. This spot is known as Olivia’s Overlook.
This hike fit all my needs and it was great to get back into hiking in New England.
So after being awake for about 24 and sleeping on and off for about four hours, I finally have half a brain to write about final Friday morning.
It started with a clean out the fridge, tidy the rental house and pack last day routine. Not very exciting, but something that had to be done.
After fridge cleanout it was time to take one last walk around our little hood. First stop a little botanical garden by the house.
Next we walked down to Waikiki Beach and back to our house.
Once back, we finished our tasks, loaded the rental car, returned it and headed off to the airport for our flight back to Connecticut.
It was a quick two weeks. We thought we would do things, we didn’t do, like eat at the Aloha Poke Co., hike Diamond Head, and eat at Sunny Days Cafe. We did things we didn’t plan on doing like our three hikes, go to Honolulu Beerworks so much and spend 2 half mornings at beaches. We really never planned our days ahead of time, except for the Heartwalk and Mike’s race. We just let the days unfold and went with what we wanted to do, having the freedom to do is a great gift.
I end with a mahalo to everyone who read this blog, who supported us on our two planned events and to Hawaii. A huge mahalo to the island for showing us so much aloha in our short visit.
We left snowy New England for sun, sand, and warmth in the Bahamas.
We made our way to Long Island via Nassau. We fly Southern Air and yesterday was the perfect example of why being laid back is essential to survival here. When we first purchased out tickets our departure time was 2 p.m.. When we checked in we were told flight time had changed to 2:50 and to be in the gate area by 1:45. At 1:15, gate change was announced and we were asked to board at 1:45. Off we went earlier, rather than later and we were ok with that.
Arriving in Nassau
Due to our early arrival we had time to hang at the airport to wait for our rental car hand over. While waiting we chatted with a lovely local woman, waiting for her delayed Nassau flight. When she discovered this was our third visit to her island, she welcomed us home, with the most sincere “Welcome Home.”
Our first stop was for some food for dinner and breakfast in the morning and well Kalik. We had traveler brain fog, so going beyond two meal plans was not happening. We picked up the basics and headed to a new to us rental in Turtle Cove.
We arrived at the cottage and unloaded, unpacked and tried to get two beers cold. The view from the deck is partially lovely, the other part is a roof. This accommodation is a bit less than the previous place we stayed, so we can’t complain. The advantage this place has is we can walk to a beach area that has tide pools.
After settling in, we grabbed two beers and went to check out the beach. Hopefully we will get a chance to snorkel here. After a short walk we headed back to the cottage.
We made a quick dinner of pasta, watched the clouds and called it an early night. We have no sunset views at this house, but we can fall asleep to the sound of crashing waves. It’s all about give and take on our Eastern island home.
Please note blog posts will be shorter and with less pictures, the internet is very weak at this cottage.
It didn’t start out crabby, it started out stormy, our Christmas Eve Day.
Rain plus sun rising on the other side means only one thing, rainbow creamer for my coffee!
While I wrote the Saturday blog post Mike cooked up sweet potatoes home fries, fried egg, yogurt with passionfruit and more coffee. Our travels to Mexico in the Mayan Jungle, taught us the value of slow leisurely breakfasts full of good eats while on vacation.
Such a hearty breakfast demanded a long leisurely beach stroll. So over to the Atlantic side we went, about a mile from the house.
We walked for a mile in this directon
love nature’s art
making new friends where ever we go
stormy clouds
just enjoying the views
view looking out
The one thing that bothered us was all the garbage washed up on shore. We saw hundreds of these clear bags here and at Dean’s Hole. Finally we could make out the writing, “Caribbean Drinking Water, Product of Haiti”. Sad that our ocean creatures are consuming these. Mike wanted to remove the rope, but it would need a truck to drag it out of the sand, it weighed a few hundred pounds.
After our two-mile stroll, we returned to the cottage to make lunch for our late morning, early afternoon adventuring. The thing I have been looking forward to the most is eating our pb and jelly sandwiches with a beer on a beach. You know it is the simple things.
Our first stop was to explore the tip of Thompson Bay. From our cottage we can see the tip of it and what appears to be a sandy beach way out. Well it was quite the adventure, especially driving the last part of the “road”.
Once we made it to the end of the “road” the beach was NOT what we expected. From our viewpoint across the way, it looks really sandy and soft, well it wasn’t that at all, it was coral, tiny jagged pieces of coral.
Trust me, don’t fall on that stuff, it rips you to shreds, I learned the hard way. I did find this interesting grouping of shells.
This was not the lunch spot we had hoped for, so on to our next beach. We went down North to lunch at Harvey’s Bay. The place was empty, perfect spot to eat and have a swim.
And this is when it happened, the crabbiness of the day set in. As Mike was heading in, he was attacked twice by a crab, thing pinched him twice.
The perp!
While recovering from the attack, he found a starfish just hanging out.
Our final beach of the day to explore was Alligator Bay. We tried to visit here in April, but a local family had pulled up and we didn’t want to be “that tourist”, so we left. Today the beach was deserted, so we could do a short stroll. We thought about going in for a dip, but crabs were everywhere in the water, on attack mode, so we didn’t venture in.
Walking three beaches today, tuckered us out, so we returned to the cottage late afternoon. We cleaned up and had appetizers.
Mike made dinner while I edited photos. He found a recipe for Bahamian pumpkin rice and decided he would attempt that. Our cottage doesn’t have an oven, so all our cooked meals have to be stovetop.
Before cooking begins
we added chicken and green onion, so good!
Before we devoured our meal it was the appointed hour of sunset watching.
After sunsetand dinner, we decided to go visit the money moth shrub, to see them all with eyes aglow, feeding. On our way out the door, Mike was attacked by another crab, this time a blue land crab. Yikes, this guy was huge…
We cautiously avoided him on our way to the shrub with the moths on it. Tonight there weren’t as many moths flying around, but enough to snap a few photos.
We retired to the screen porch and played a few games of cards before calling it a night. Even though we experienced some crabbiness during Christmas Eve day and night, it was still a fantastic day living the island life.
A 3:30 a.m. wake up for a 6 a.m. flight out means a breakfast of champions starts our day.
We arrived to our terminal in no time, caught our first of three flights and landed a bit late in Atlanta. Our next flight was delayed and we worried we wouldn’t make our 1 p.m. check in time for the small outbound flight in Nassau. Well we cut it close and were checking in at 12:45 p.m. for our final leg of the trip. We boarded our 2 p.m. flight early but sat for a bit waiting for one passenger to fill our 9 seater aircraft to capacity. Love these little flights over the islands. We were able to spot Staniel Cay and waved to our friends on that island.
We landed, waited for our rental car lady to hand over the keys and took off. First stop was Yukon Jack’s liquor store for beer, this year we decided to branch out and buy a case of Sands, adding some variety to our beer drinking this trip.
Next stop were the two local grocery stores. Mail boats must have recently arrived, because people were busily putting items on the shelves and the markets were hoping, as only they can in the Bahamas. Our brains were a bit fuzzy, so even with a grocery list, we forgot half the items we needed or wanted. We did get two essentials besides the beer, Bahamian bread and gingernuts cookies.
Arriving at the cottage around 4:15, we unloaded the car, put groceries away and discovered a cold beer in the fridge. Well with that beer, we decided unpacking clothes could wait till after sunset and we needed to walk the property and watch the sunset.
The sunset was spectacular. Perhaps one of the best we have ever had the privilege of viewing.
After the stunning sunset, we headed in to make a quick dinner and unpack. While doing both, we noticed the afterglow that continued on long after the sunset.
It was an early night for us; due to being up in the wee hours of dawn, riding three planes, doing the airport sprint in Nassau, and remembering to drive on the left side of the road. All of that just wore us out. Glad to finally have arrived for our holiday break.
CTHikergal Travels 