After a year of planning we finally began our long two day journey to Eleuthera. We departed at 5:45am on Friday and after two 40-50min stops we finally arrived in Ft. Lauderdale around 5pm on time and with all our luggage accounted for.
We used my husband’s hotel points to get ourselves what we thought would be a swanky oceanfront room in FLL. We did not realize that it would be spring break in Florida and that most the hotels were booked solid. So of course the "free" room was the bottom of the barrel. HA HA what were we thinking free and nice, yea right? We wound up in the hotels old building with a dank run-down room, surrounded by spring breakers and complete with prostitutes on the corner. Honestly the whole thing was rather amusing and it was free so we had a nice chuckle. We did have a nice marina view where we could gawk at all the fancy yachts. We also found a really fun bar on the water so we wound up having a pretty fun time holding up in Florida counting the minutes till we could go back to paradise.
We used my husband’s hotel points to get ourselves what we thought would be a swanky oceanfront room in FLL. We did not realize that it would be spring break in Florida and that most the hotels were booked solid. So of course the "free" room was the bottom of the barrel. HA HA what were we thinking free and nice, yea right? We wound up in the hotels old building with a dank run-down room, surrounded by spring breakers and complete with prostitutes on the corner. Honestly the whole thing was rather amusing and it was free so we had a nice chuckle. We did have a nice marina view where we could gawk at all the fancy yachts. We also found a really fun bar on the water so we wound up having a pretty fun time holding up in Florida counting the minutes till we could go back to paradise.
We were up bright and early Saturday morning and after breakfast and a nice walk we headed off to FLL. We have always taken the United (once Continental) connection from FLL to ELH or GHB. Up to this point we had arrived at the proper airport 50% of the time, arrived typically 1-3 hours late every time, but we had always departed Eleuthera on time and from the proper airport. The last time we flew it was a different airline, running the connections this time it was Silver Airways. I have to say we were very impressed. The planes are newer, cleaner and the weekend flights have larger planes that even have with bathrooms and drink service. We arrived within 15 minutes of our scheduled time and it was a really pleasant flight. We even had cocktails, I had a very classy mini bottle of Barefoot Pinot and J had Glenlivet.
We met Stanton Cooper at the airport to pick up our rig for the next 3 weeks. He really hooked us up this time with a 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee. There was plenty of room, everything worked and it had good tires and a roof rack. It served us very well on our numerous adventures.
We're staying at Caribbean Blue for the first two weeks which is just a few miles from the airport so we made a quick stop by the house, dropped off our luggage, and checked to see what supplies we needed to get through the next couple of days. We grabbed a cooler and rushed out to get the shopping over with. About 90 minutes later and $400 poorer we had a full tank of gas, Island Farms veggies dressing and sauces, enough groceries for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 2-3 days and and plenty of beer, wine and liquor.
We met Stanton Cooper at the airport to pick up our rig for the next 3 weeks. He really hooked us up this time with a 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee. There was plenty of room, everything worked and it had good tires and a roof rack. It served us very well on our numerous adventures.
We're staying at Caribbean Blue for the first two weeks which is just a few miles from the airport so we made a quick stop by the house, dropped off our luggage, and checked to see what supplies we needed to get through the next couple of days. We grabbed a cooler and rushed out to get the shopping over with. About 90 minutes later and $400 poorer we had a full tank of gas, Island Farms veggies dressing and sauces, enough groceries for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 2-3 days and and plenty of beer, wine and liquor.
We were back home to Caribbean Blue and in the water before 3pm. After a nice snorkel, it was time for cocktail hour so we enjoyed a round of spunky monkeys (recipe below) on the deck then started working on dinner. There was a light breeze so we were able to enjoy dinner at sunset outside on the deck. We had an island farms salad with fresh lobster and fine herb dressing for dinner, accompanied by a glass of Malbec. We also met the two giant lizards (later to be named El Gordo (Zordo) and Gordette) who would frequent the deck in the daytime and beg for food.
Spunky Monkey Recipe: Fill a glass with Ice, add one shot dark rum, one shot Ricardo Coconut Rum, and a generous squeeze of lime. Fill with club soda, stir and enjoy.
Liquor Prices: (as best I can remember).
Trivento Malbec, and Malbec Blends from Bristols in Cupids Cay: We found this to be the best wine value, it was around $12 a bottle and drank like a $8-9 bottle in the states. We prefer Bristols by far for wine selection. They also accept credit cards.
Beer: We paid $40 a case for Sands light and $46 for Kalik and Heineken. We prefer Burrows for beer selection and prices.
Liquor: Rum ranged from $10-$15, Jameson 15 year was around $15, and Absolute was around $12. We like to shop around for liquor but when we are in a hurry we always go to Burrows.
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