A Fabulous Day on Eleuthera

The power went out in the wee hours of the morning so we had a few hot restless hours without the ceiling fan.   The wind has also died down for the first time since we arrived so a few sneaky no-seeums made their way through the screens and into our bed sheets during the night.  My husband was generally spared but I made a tasty meal.  I was not in too bad of shape though, only about a half dozen bites, nothing a little salt water couldn't cure.

We were not too surprised about the power outage, there has always been at least one every trip, so it was expected.  Our main concern was NO COFFEE.  This constituted a major emergency in our household.  It is really not safe to speak to me until I have had at least one cup of coffee, and those who dare only get a one word answer.  But before we ran out in search of caffeine we needed a backup plan for all our perishables just in case the power did not come on.  The fridge and freezer were already warming up so we pulled all the ice from the freezer and put it in bowls in the fridge and placed anything important in the bowls of ice.  Then we packed what we needed for lunch in the cooler and we went in search of caffeine.  We passed the repair men fixing the source of the outage, a down power pole, on the way in to Governors. 

I convinced J to try coffee and breakfast at Da Perk this time.  He subsided after only minor mumblings about donuts.  Da Perk had great drip coffee (starbucks) and really tasty breakfast sandwiches.  I had the veggie and egg sandwich and J had the Ham and egg both on a croissant.   One bite and he completely forgot about donuts.

After we finished our breakfast and coffee we were back to our friendly human selves again and decided to hit the beach.  It was a spectacularly beautiful day, calm and in the low 80's, absolutely perfect.    We decided it was time to to hit our favorite (very secret) beach.  Sorry it is just to perfect to give the secret away.  If you want to go there you will have to find it on your own, it is more fun to discover these places by chance anyway. 

We arrived just after 10am and set up camp for the day.  We were in the water within about 30 min and had a fabulous 2 hour long snorkel.  It was our first good long snorkel of the trip and well worth the wait.  We saw two spotted eagle rays and tons of spectacular fish big and small.  If we had to name this beach I think we would call it parrotfish beach because of all of the huge parrotfish everywhere.  The reef is about 300 yards off shore and we did not feel like loading up the kayak so J made himself a little float to put fish in with a cooler strapped into the middle of an inner tube.  This is our usual beer receptacle when we float the rivers out in in Montana.  He was hoping if we had a sealed container to put fish in I would stop abandoning him as soon as he speared a fish, it worked!

J speared himself a nice sized schoolmaster snapper on the first trip out.  About an hour in we saw a small 4’ reef shark. It popped over the reef and took a peek at us then bolted the other way.  I made the “this snorkel is over” signal to J and tried to flee.  He was not going to put up with it this time so he made me stay.  I had about 15 minutes of uneasiness then I calmed down.  It was good for me to face my fear and it put me at ease the rest of the trip.

After a couple of hours we finally exhausted ourselves and had to come in for a break and to eat some lunch.  We were enjoying our sandwiches and Sands when J spotted a couple of bonefish.   He ran up to the car to get his bonefishing gear.  While he was up at the car a local woman and her visiting family arrived.  They had lots of little tots with them that hit the water immediately so by the time J got his rod rigged up the bonefish had been scared off.  Soon another nice couple of seasonal residents arrived.  They were amazed at how many people were there that day.  They said they had never seen anyone this beach before and we said the same.  I think all 3 groups had been waiting patiently for the wind to die down and we all jumped at the opportunity to go to our favorite spot when it finally did.

It’s so funny our perspective, we had gotten so used to never seeing anyone our previous trips that seeing two other groups on the beach felt like a crowded beach day.  We had to step back and go, come on 3 groups on a long stretch of beach we are still spoiled rotten!!

After the beach got busy and we had re-fueled we hit the water for another long snorkel.  We spent another couple hours in the water and J got another schoolmaster.  We thoroughly tuckered ourselves out and decided to call it a day.  Plus we needed to get some groceries and liquor store before they closed up for the day.  Our friends were arriving the next day and we wanted to make sure we had everything we needed for their arrival.

On our way back up to the car we chatted with the couple that had arrived at lunch.  They were snorkeling not far from us and said they saw 8 spotted eagle rays.   Just amazing, they are just such amazing graceful creatures, seeing two was a thrill,  I can’t imagine seeing eight at once.

After we loaded up we headed to our favorite little liquor store in RS, they said open but the door was locked so we decided they had just stepped out for a minute.  We drove down to the beach to gawk at all the sailboats and chatted with two young boys heading out to catch bait fish for a little while.

After snapping a few photos we got back into the car to check to see if the liquor store had opened back up yet.   J decided to drive at this point, he likes to roll the window down and tap his wedding ring on the side of the car when we are driving.  He started doing this and realized there was no tapping sound and discovered there was no longer a ring on his finger.  We pulled into the liquor store lot and scoured all his snorkel stuff and dive gloves, still no ring.  I went in got him some road beers, parked him in the passenger seat and drove him all the way back to the beach.  We searched and searched but never found it.  He was sure it came off when he took his dive gloves off and knew right where that was, but the sand is so soft and it was a heavy ring so I am sure it just sank into the sandy abyss.  He was pretty bummed, but I think mostly he was worried I would get upset.  I just told him he would have to buy himself a new one.  He kept joking that he was single now and was going to go marry a Bahamian woman so he never has to go home.  Obviously that plan did not work so well for him....

We headed back to Caribbean Blue after that, stopping in Governors Harbour to stock up on food and beer on the way.  He had a nice stiff cocktail when we got home and forgot all about the lost ring. We enjoyed our last evening of just the two of us and cooked up the snapper for dinner, with salad and baked potatoes.  It was still a fabulous day, despite a small loss.  At least it was not my ring that would have been a much more expensive setback.  A lost wedding ring is a small price to pay for a fabulous day in paradise.

Just a FYI on the grocery shopping.  I the past we have brought a cooler with coffee, frozen meat and trail mix.  It is a huge pain and this time we decided not to bother.  I am so glad we did, not only is that money going into the local economy, as it should, but we were never once lacking for food options.  I found gluten free tortillas and Starbucks coffee at the Market Place in Rock Sound.  They also have a few organic meat options, soymilk, etc.  We found plenty of lunch meat options in all the grocery stores, turkey, ham, roast beef, salami.  Island farms had the best salad dressings and fresh bread anywhere (on island or off), plus they have large 2-3lb bags of ground and whole bean coffee for a pretty decent price.   You may have to modify your eating habits to fit what is available, but we ate an incredibly delicious and balanced diet while we were there and never once wished we would have brought something from the states.