Day 8 – Firsts

Today we had a bunch of firsts. But first coffee and breakfast!

Our first stop of the day was the bakery to drop off two books that the authors and illustrator had signed for the kids of the island. The baker has a little library in her bakery. I am thankful for these friends that sent me signed bookplates to place in their books. That was a first for us, bringing books to leave for the island children.

As we drove through Clarence Town, I yelled “STOP” flamingos. Finally we had our first flamingo sighting, 60 of them just napping and hanging out.

After a few hundred photos, we continued on our way to Rose’s Little Harbor. We had visited once before, but never got in the water. It looked like there might be snorkelable reefs, but the majority of it was turtle grass. We did find a few small coral heads and we had our first snorkel around a sunken boat. Around this boat we also had our first sighting of an ocean triggerfish (sadly couldn’t get a good photo).

We also or rather I had the first sighting of the largest conch I have ever seen, these guys were huge.

We drove up the road a bit and walked up and over the next ridge, scouting a beach location for possible walks. It didn’t look promising.

Leaving our destinations, we watched the flamingos some more. Our next stop was Max’s Conch Bar for lunch. This was our first time eating out this trip, that’s a first, we usually lunch here within days of our arrival. We had grouper fingers and a conch burger. Our sides are always peas and rice and one dish we have johnny cake. Well it was a first for us, no johnny cake today.

On our way back to home base we had the mundane task of picking up some groceries and water.

Dinner was salad with chicken and of course johnny cake.

Our nightly routine of Mike’s float during sunset continues. Maybe some night we will have a first of me joining him for a sunset float, maybe…

Today was full of firsts and one bucket list item, flamingos!

July 16, 2019 0

Day 7 – From Deserted to Dessert

Today begin with me cloud watching, followed by french toast sticks topped with local banana and passionfruit. Great way to fuel the body for today’s adventures.

We packed our gear to snorkel over to Guana Cay to spend some time exploring the island and visiting with it’s locals, curly tailed lizards.

After exploring was over, we sat down and had a slice or two of johnny cake and gave a few crumbs to our new buddies.

The tide was going out as we swam across and we made a few more friends on our way over to our starting shore.

sea cucumber
all these little shells with critters in

It was time for lunch once we reached land. We decided to head over to Boat Harbor Road and have lunch at the gazebo.

After lunch we thought it would be a great idea to kayak over to Evas Cay, another deserted island, we can see from our location. Our first omen that it was a not a great idea, was the snake between the kayaks.

The second omen, the current and winds were opposing forces making it difficult for us to get over there. We prevailed and just walked around a bit.

We finally made it back and had our reward, a Kalik.

We rested for a bit, had dinner and a lovely dessert of dilly fruit and my no bake papaya lime cheesecake before our sunset ritual.

It was a very full day from deserted islands to dessert and everything in between.

July 15, 2019 0

Day 3 – Mother Nature’s Amusement Park

Oh Mother Nature you provided us with such joy today, we loved your visual presentations, wild rides and underwater adventures. We certainly felt like we were in Mother Nature’s Amusement Park.

I was up early and went to see the drama of the clouds down by the water. Overnight we had a downpour, much needed to fill the cisterns here. The dark clouds enveloped us most of the day.

After savoring the quiet of the early morning, I returned to the apartment and made dinner for tonight, tuna noodle casserole. It is so hot here the best time to cook dinner is in the morning and reheat in the microwave at dinner time. After that was made it was time to make breakfast. Our host, Cheryl gave us a very ripe papaya yesterday, which was a perfect topping for our french toast sticks for breakfast.

Remember the rain I mentioned? It really brought out the frogs and this one was carrying her baby.

After breakfast we prepared our gear and lunch for the day. Our destination was Galloway Beach, but further out than we have driven before. On our way to our destination, the ancient island woman that sells fruit by the roadside had a bunch of dilly fruit. We stopped and I asked her how much, she said 3 for $5, which I thought was a bit steep. We had stopped and I didn’t want to give tourists a bad reputation so I said sure. I picked my 3 dillies and then she told me to take two more. I don’t know what happened next but she grabbed all the fruit she had and walked it to our car. In total she gave us 13 dilly for $5, what a bargain, now we just need them to soften up.

Oh my Mother Nature outdid herself today with the views and the “river” adventure we had. We walked the beach, the sandbars, we had a wild ride down the river towards the ocean and then we lunched. It was a blast and oh yes we plan to return here this trip.

After lunch we headed out to Lochabar Bay area to walk a bit. While walking we spotted turtles swimming about.

As I was starting to crisp up, we decided it was time to head back home. At home I went for a snorkel, Mike paddleboarded and then enjoyed a float. I worked on my underwater picture taking skills, as I haven’t done it in a while. I still need to work on it, but the little jetties on our beach provide for a great practice area.

After our snorkel and paddle/float, we retired indoors until dinner time. After dinner and clean up, it was sunset time and another float for Mike. Sunset wasn’t grand, but we will cut Mother Nature some slack as she provided a great amusement park for us all day, she worked hard!

July 11, 2019 0

Day 2 – All the S words

Sunrise, scrambled eggs, shopping, snorkeling, sandwiches, swim, snooze, snack, supper and sunset. There that is our day!

I watched the clouds change as the sun rose and then had my coffee savoring the song of the birds while devouring a plate full of scrambled eggs. Then we were on to our next S word, shopping.

After shopping was completed for more necessary food items, we made a plan to visit a beach close to our rental, McKanns. We explored this area on a previous trip, discovering a hurricane destroyed resort, where the owner tracked us down, wanting to know if we were investors.

This adventure we went the other way. We went above the beach to check out the cove area, find a path down to the area. Once on the beach we had a little swim followed by a small beach walk.

As we walked, we debated on whether or not to go for a snorkel, the water was a bit rolly, the water a bit churned and we knew the reef was a bit of a swim for me. We decided to go for a snorkel and see if worth returning on a calm day. I mustered up my courage to go way out as I’ve a huge fear of being sucked out to the ocean (I blame my sisters for this, they told me stories as a kid of being caught in undertows and how scary it is) and we went out. Boy are we glad we did, what a great reef, not many pictures because Mike has to get used to using the underwater camera again and it was a bit rolly, like I said.

I was way out there, no big deal for Mike but huge for me.

Time to find a lunch spot and enjoy our typical peanut butter and guava jelly sandwiches on a beach. We drove about 12 miles down north to Deals beach, where we knew we had shade and munched on our lunch.

We were pretty tired for our adventures so back we headed to have a little snooze before snacks, supper and sunset. However, as I slipped into snoozing wear, I discovered I was full of sand, so down to the beach we went so I could swim around and clear out all the sand that filled my bathing suit bottom, such problems! Then it was back to our plan of snooze, snack, supper, sunset.

On our many trips to Staniel Cay, we had a wall that we would have our evening snacks on, it was a perfect place. We truly haven’t found a replacement in Kauai, Oahu or here until now. We found our evening snack area finally.

After our snacking, we returned to the apartment and started fixing supper. We dined in the same spot as we snacked at. We are becoming enamoured of the view here. After dinner we cleaned up and waited until sunset viewing time. Clouds once again blocked the sinking of the sun, but the clouds provided their own beautiful drama.

As an educator I hate when students come to me to tattle that so and so said the S word, it could mean so many negative things. I prefer vacation S words so much more.

July 10, 2019 0

Day .5 – 1 Arrival in Long Island

Our travels began on Monday afternoon after Mike left work. We did the 2.5 hour drive to JFK to spend the night in the new TWA hotel located at the airport. Location was great, right by Terminal 5 and our JetBlue departure early the next morning. We had dinner there, tasty but expensive and spent the night. The room lacked some amenities such as lotion and a coffee maker.

We set our alarms for 3:15 a.m. and left the room by 4 a.m. after making instant coffee using lukewarm tap water. At least we had the smarts to bring some decent instant coffee.

We walked right up to TSA precheck with no wait and cleared in seconds. We boarded at 5:15 and promptly left at 5:50.

It was a mere 2.5 hour to Nassau. We landed as the first Southern Air flight to Long Island was taking off. Southern Air was kind enough to let us check in and hold our luggage. Normally they don’t do check in until 3 hours before the flight but we would be hauling our luggage around and they didn’t want us to have to do that. We grabbed a taxi and went to Compass Point Resort for a late breakfast. What a lovely place to wait and have a very filling meal.

We returned around 11 a.m. and had another 3 or so hours to wait until our out island flight was departing. We napped, walked and attempted to get my Bahamian phone number to activate (we eventually did when we realized Mr.SimCard had not done his job).

Our plane was called around 1:45. I had joked with Mike on the weekend, the Hon. Adrian Gibson, MP would be on our flight. It wasn’t a joke, there was Adrian boarding with us. I chatted with him till we were on the plane. He is doing some amazing things for this island and it was lovely to get to know him.

I didn’t pick good seats on the plane so our views of the islands we flew over were obscured. We did wave to our friends on Staniel Cay though.

Once we landed our rental car was waiting with keys already for us to go. We’ve used Unique Wheels enough, they trust us to leave the vehicle at the airport for us, no more waiting around for them to show up. Our first stop was….I know some of you will say for beer, but no…..fresh bread at Erica’s Bakery in Clarence Town, the opposite direction of where we are staying.

We then stopped at the three “major” grocery stores on the island. The boat had just come in so there were lots of fresh vegetables to be purchased.

Our brains were starting to turn to mush, so we landed at our home base, C Shells Guest Quarters in Salt Pond and unpacked, made dinner and watched the water.

No real sunset tonight, it was blocked by clouds. We had thought we could go to the Independence Day festival from 8 p.m. to midnight down the road, but it’s not safe for us to be out after being up since 3 a.m. Maybe I’ll get up at midnight to watch the fireworks….we’ll see if tomorrow morning I add an addendum to this…

addendum: slept through the fireworks….

July 9, 2019 0

Goodbye to 2018- Day 10

The last day of 2018 and our last full day here on island started with a spectacular sunrise.

After a lazy morning of coffee and french toast sticks, we meandered over to Ford’s beach for one last walk about. This beach is a prime shelling spot, but today the ocean wasn’t offering much. We did get two new to us shells though, so I shouldn’t get greedy. We walked to the north of the boat ramp, further than we have walked here before.

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It was getting close to lunch, so off to Max’s for one last lunch out on the island. I had grilled wahoo, while Mike enjoyed the conch salad. Finally we learned to carry bug spray with us and spray up before sitting at Max’s. The no seeums can be brutal here.

On our return home, we stopped at this little roadside house. Would love to know the story behind it.

Once at the house we began the ritual of packing up, consolidating the collected shells and cleaning up. Ok I did sneak in a nap, while Mike did most of the work. I did snap a picture of our lovely beach. There were pig prints in the sand today, hmmmm.

The homeowners came over before we went out for our sunset viewing. They had just returned to the island and it was wonderful to meet them in person.

After chatting for a while we departed to watch the final sunset of 2018 at Galloway beach. Upon entering the beach area we were both sad to see someone had taken the “happy rocks” that were there early in the week.