Day 14 – Last Full Day

This is our last full day. We just meandered about after my cloud viewing and our breakfast.

Our first stop of the day was the grocery store. I had a tee shirt to pick up from our new friend we met yesterday to support the Mack Knowles Jr. Sail Club and pick up some gingernut cookies for our flight.

We decided to head South today, trying to find a beach by Bahamian Dreamin’ that had a gazebo. First though we hit a traffic detour as they are working on putting water lines in for the island.

Our first stop was the Museum. Sorry no pictures were permitted inside, but it is a tiny little museum and I would recommend going to learn a little more about island life and its history.

After our visit we went in search of that beach and gazebo only to discover we couldn’t legally access it so we drove over to Deans Blue Hole to see how conditions were and if it was prime for snorkeling. The answer was no, seaweed had pushed in, so no snorkel or swim for us.

We continued on to Clarence Town to pick up a thank you gift for friend at Ena L. Major Creations. We try to always stop in and pick something up. We learned Ena is 85 years old, goodness she doesn’t look a day over 65 and has the spirit of a 25 year old.

On our way back North, we stopped at Under the Sun Department Store for some homemade Soursop Ice Cream. It was delicious.

We headed home to have lunch of peanut butter and guava sandwiches. You know having dessert first if the thing to do. After lunch we worked on potential holiday card photos. Here are a few unedited outtakes.

After that excitement and secretly hoping the manatee would photobomb us, we went inside and started the dismissal task of packing and cleaning.

Dinner was leftovers, you know the fridge clean out feast and then onto our last sunset viewing party till our return.

July 22, 2019 0

Day 13 – Connections

There is a bad side to social media and also a good side. This trip has been enhanced due to the positive connections we’ve made through social media and the internet.

I did my early morning cloud viewing, followed by a breakfast of french toast sticks topped with dilly, papaya, and star fruit. A plating competition may have ensued.

We planned out the day, hoping that with the wind shift, we might have had a chance at snorkeling at Poseidon, but it was still to rough for safe snorkeling.

Our next destination was a tip given to us on our 2nd or 3rd day here by our host. Connecting with her has been a wonderful experience and let us see things we would haven’t know about. We returned to our favorite snorkel spot, the seas were even rougher over here, but in we went, first doing the 1/4 mile beach walk to the far spot and then the walk back to the closer reef.

The rain clouds were moving in, we decided to not have lunch here and go for a covered spot to lunch. We drove the short distance to Busted Bridge. We knew they weren’t open but had a covered spot we could sit under to lunch. We attempted that until the no seeums were so bad they drove us away.

We meandered home on the one main road,enjoying the views as we went.

Once back at the base camp, we unloaded and were about ready to settle down for our afternoon Kalik and water viewing session, when a message appeared to meet someone at Dean’s Blue Hole.

Who is this someone? A woman who instagrammed that she was a home brewer living here on the island. I struck up a conversation and asked our local home breweries if they had any hops we could bring to her. Assistant Brewer Justin from Firefly Hollow hooked us up. Mel from MelsBells Brewing asked us to join her and her family at Dean’s Blue Hole to share beers and exchange the hops. We lathered up more sunscreen and headed down to Deans.

At Deans we heard this familiar voice say “you guys again!” and we went “oh no, guess it’s time we formally introduce ourselves.” As Mel was coming over to us. This other woman works at the local food store, where we always have a great interaction with her, she ran the sailing races on Saturday and then she was at Deans with her friends and family (including Mel) celebrating her wedding anniversary. Mel had invited us to her friend’s anniversary celebration and in a superficial way we knew her friend. Everyone made us feel welcomed and not as if we were an intrusion or unwanted. We stayed for a while enjoying Mel’s delicious homebrew (that’s coconut milk stout in the milk jug), watching the kids jump and getting to know people. Thank you social meeting for bringing people together.

Once home, it was dinner time of risotto and then sunset viewing. The clouds were very heavy with moisture and obscured the setting sun, but the clouds were great to watch.

We’ve been lucky to meet some awesome people through social media, whether personal friends connect us or just starting a conversation with someone because of shared interests.

July 22, 2019 0

Day 12-Tiring Day

When you visit 3 beaches, complete 3 miles of beach walks, swim over a few lots to check out a house for sale and watch kids sail you become so exhausted you can’t think of words to write the blog, so you don’t until the following day.

By now you know the routine, get up, look at morning clouds, make breakfast and plan the day.

After that we dropped in at the farmers market and today it had more than 3 vendors. Of course we are leaving in 3 days so we didn’t need a lot of things. We did pick up some fruit though.

We made a plan to go visit a new area on the Petty Hamilton line. Mike wasn’t sure which of two roads had beach access so we went down the first one. What we discovered both went to beach points, but the second one was paved, we should have taken the paved road.

We cooled off here in a little pool of water, where a fish actually nibbled me.

After that adventure we decided to head over to Compass Rose. The road is in worse shape compared to when we have been there in the past. Choose your driving path wisely, on the way out we didn’t and became a little stuck in a rut.

From here we went to Deans to see if our seabiscuit, carefully hidden, it had started to sun bleach. It had started the process so we took it with us.

We were very hungry at this point, so across the Queens Highway we went to lunch at Turnbull gazebo.

We headed for home base, but first we had to stop to pick up a passion fruit radler.

Once back at base we put on some fins and swam over a few lots to look at the perfect house for us. You know what they say about timing? It’s all about the timing. If this house is for sale in 8 years it might be the one…and who doesn’t swim by a house that is for sale to get a good view of it?

And it has upside down jellyfishes, that’s a huge bonus for us.

Back from our scouting expedition we watched the Mack Knowles Jr Sailing Club from the beach, after a while we went over to the Cultural site to watch up close.

We had downtime before dinner of leftovers and then we watched the sunset, routines to begin and end our day. It was a very tiring day and I just couldn’t write yesterday.

July 21, 2019 0

Day 5 – Hitting Up Our Go To Spots

I was up early to soak in the morning calls of the birds and watch the day begin.

Our plan today was farmer’s market at 8 a.m. return to the house and revisit some of our favorite places, our go to spots.

We had breakfast of an omelet with toast smeared with locally made guava jam. After breakfast I had my second attempt at making johnny cake. I used a smaller pan, lowered the oven temperature and lessened the baking time. It worked I made johnny cake without a burn! It came out of the oven just before we left for the farmers market, perfect timing.

Well the farmers market today was not bustling, only a few vendors were around and not much food stuff. We picked up a papaya, starfruit jam, onions and passionfruit! We thought we would drive by a little later to see if more vendors would come. Well they didn’t.

View from the farmer’s market parking lot

We unpacked the few items and then packed up for the day. Our first stop was Dean’s Blue Hole, the world’s second deepest blue hole. On our first visit here, I was too chicken to swim over it, in it or near it. When we returned home, I was upset with myself and vowed next trip I would get over my fear. Yup over that fear. We snorkeled the hole and around the area. It was a workout as the current was very strong. We spent about an hour here, finding sand dollars and sea biscuits. We left our sea treasures behind and headed off to our next destination.

the edge of the hole
Sunrays going down into the blue hole
Don’t step on the fire worm
a live sea biscuit
sand dollars and a dead sea biscuit
day 5 and first people on the beach encounter

We drove up south to Ford’s Landing. We always walk to the right (amazing shelling here) but today we turned left, as there was more sand to walk on, hopped in the water and floated. The blues here always take my breath away.

After all that sun and water, we needed lunch. We turned towards the north and went to Galloway beach because we knew the casuarina pines would provide us with shade. We found a shady spot and enjoyed our sandwiches and my yummy johnny cake. After lunch we were beat and returned to our home base.

Mike enjoying johnny cake

I had hoped to go for a snorkel when we landed at the apartment, but the tide was way out, so a snorkel wouldn’t work very well. Instead we went for a float. In certain spots the water was hot today, not warm but hot. You could compare it to pedicure soaking water hot.

After the float, we made a papaya lime no bake cheesecake. By then I was spent, I needed a nap and I took one. Mike researched our adventures for tomorrow. Dinner was leftover casserole and broccoli salad. We wondered why the horizon looked so hazy and come to find out it might be the Sahara dust blowing over us.

After dinner and cleanup, Mike went for his sunset swim, bringing me a gift from the sea while I sat absorbing all the beauty.

Today we revisited three of our go to spots for snorkeling, views and shade. It’s always good to have a few go to spots.

July 13, 2019 0

Island Life As a Visitor – Day 6

Today we have settled into our island life as a visitor. It shouldn’t have taken us this long to get in our groove, but this time it did. I think the whole luggage escapade threw us off our game.

Another windy, stormy day greeted us. Coffee photos were taken quickly, praying the cup wouldn’t be blown away. We didn’t want to waste any of our good coffee that had finally arrived.

This morning I decided to try my hand at making johnny cake. The owners gifted us with a Bahamian cookbook, so I had to make something. I did add a twist to it, put in coconut rum soaked raisins. I was so happy when it turned out yummy!.

Next up was breakfast, french toast sticks with local bread.

Over breakfast the plan was made for at least the morning, go up south to the end of the island. Our first stop was Fords Landing. One of the first things we learned in the Bahamas was to know when tides were happening. Our arrival at Fords would happen between low and high tide, so shelling would be better.

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We continued on to Gordons, but first we become distracted by the ducks in a pond in Mortimers.

Finally we made it to the end of the road, to Gordons beach. My favorite beach on this island. Part of the reason we stayed up south this time was to be closer to this beach. We also purchased our Suniela canopy for this beach.

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We spent a little over an hour here, beach walking, swimming and snacking. As we left, the gray skies came over and rain dumped on us as we sat in the car.

Our next stop was PitBull’s place for a beer. Sadly the only cold beer he had was Guinness, because he was just restocking the fridge, after the liquor stores were closed for a few days due to holidays. Everyone drank him out of beer. He did comp us a lovely fresh conch salad. Funny a year ago we were on the other end of the island and were given conch salad. Guess Dec. 27 is the day we find free conch salad on this island!

While there we had an interesting conversation with another patron on the state of U.S. politics. Mike hit me to keep my mouth shut and not inform the man on how really it is.

After Pitbull’s we stopped at an abandoned church, just one of many on this island. It seemed to be the church where the swallowtails and money moths go to die.

On the way back to the house we encountered more goats and even a pig, true island life.

Once at the house, we had leftovers for lunch. After lunch we headed out to a store to purchase more butter. On our way back we stopped at Dean’s Blue Hole. We stayed in this area last April. The winds were the strongest we have ever seen here and you couldn’t even tell there was a blue hole here.

We had one more beach to check out, across from Deans, by Lloyd’s Bar. Turnbull beach is a lovely little area, but more rain was approaching, so we didn’t stay long.

And the rain came and came and came. When we arrived back at the rental Mike had to push out the water from the screened porch, island life.

The remainder of our afternoon and evening was watching rain come in, running to shut doors and windows, making pizza for dinner, cleaning shells, playing with my watercolors, opening windows and doors when the rain stopped and having dinner.

We found over the years how to handle island life. It requires flexibility, ingenuity and a go with the flow attitude. It also helps to smile, wave and learn to listen to the locals. Maybe some year we will be lucky enough to be an island resident somewhere, we’ve been practicing island life since 2004.

December 27, 2018 0

Day 8 – Always good to say when we come back…

It is our last full day here on island. The time flew by perhaps because we were so busy and didn’t give ourselves a lot of down time to just sit on the porch and read. We repeatedly said when we come back we will do this and that. However this time we added well maybe we might spend a day sitting and reading next time, that was new to our sayings on the island.

We began with our last coffee at Dean’s. We’ve really come to enjoy sipping our first cup at Dean’s in the morning.

After Dean’s we went to the Souse Out put on by the Ladies of the Friendship Center to grab some souse for dinner. We picked up a mutton and chicken one.

We had to swing by the cottage to drop off the food and plan the day. While at the cottage we had a baby goat visitor, he stopped by, drank some water, cried a little and wandered home.

We mapped out our route, starting at Hardings Beach in Salt Pond to hike around and see the amphitheater of the sea. It was a great area to explore.

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We returned to the highway and cruised our way down to Millerton School Beach. We had a quarter-mile hike in to get the beach. The trail was lined with cactus and bromeliads. We ate our lunch here, dodging the sand bees that were flying all over.

Today’s adventures had tuckered us out, so we headed back to go for one last dip in at Dean’s Blue Hole. On our way back, we decided to follow the signs for J’annte Straw Creations. I am so happy we did, her work was extraordinary. Her plait work was beautiful, even standing around a dead hog in the shed while looking at her work didn’t faze us. I picked up a clutch, which I will never use as a clutch and two placemats.

We made it to Dean’s mid afternoon and the place was packed. We had about 15 people there, the most we have even seen on any Long Island Beach. The current was very strong so we only waded out a bit and didn’t collect any sand dollars.

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We didn’t stay long, headed home and started the painful task of packing. I had 17 sand dollars to take home, however we couldn’t fit all of them in a container, so I had to choose five to stay behind, that was a woeful task.

Our vacation has ended, tomorrow we head home to cold (why hasn’t spring stuck in New England?) but I will carry in my heart all the amazing memories we created and know there are more to create when we return.

April 14, 2018 0