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Bahamas Report (no pics yet) June 25, 2006 - 17:26:18
Okay, so I know we've been home for a week already, and we really haven't said much about our week-long trip to the Bahamas. I'm sorry! There's been alot of things going on, what with unpacking, cleaning, and redoing the basement known as Taeliac Studio. I guess this is a "report" of sorts.
Note: due to my laziness, you may see this same post on multiple forums. Please excuse me. We're going to put up about 300 pictures, and the good ones will have captions, but that'll take a while still. I wanted to share some bits here though!
-HOW: We left on a Sunday night from Milwaukee, WI, and arrived in Detroit, MI shortly thereafter. We stayed overnight in Romulus, a suburb of Detroit, and flew out in the morning for Fort Lauderdale, with an immediate connecting flight arriving at our final destination of Marsh Harbour.
-WHERE: We were in Casuarina Point, Abaco, Bahamas. Population of the "settlement" of the Point is about 100 or so people. Abaco is the island in the NE of the chain, pretty much due E of Fort Lauderdale, FL. It has an international airport in Marsh Harbour, and one main road that scoots up the middle of the island (which is kind of shaped like a boomerang facing the left). Casuarina Point is named for the trees, which are Casuarina Pines. It's about 20 miles south of the main city (Marsh Harbour). My grandparents have 3 'cottages' that the rent out to friends and family year-round, and Taeliac & I were able to get one of them for a week. We were literally on the beach, surrounded by palm trees and sand. Maybe a little patch of grass.
Inside of the cottage named "Sunrise", there's a small kitchenette/living room kind of thing. It has a sofa and a chair, which are across from the gas range, sink, and refridgerator. That leads to the bedroom, which has a Full Size Bed, and a bathroom with shower stall. In case you were curious, the matching cottage "Sunset", which is attached to the other, is the same thing minus the bedroom. The sofas in both pull out into Full Size Beds.
-WHO: Well, Taeliac and I stayed alone in Sunrise, but there's another cottage across the way which was built about a year ago. It's called "Fish Tales". My Grandparents' House kind of completes a triangle to Sunrise/Sunset and Fish Tales, so that it's also facing the ocean, but lies back a bit. Staying at Fish Tales were some long-time friends and customers: Cindy and Ron, along with their friend Sheri. They were excellent people. It was like we were all a great big family. Cindy and Ron have been coming down there at least once a year, every year, for the past decade or so. They're like bonafide bahamians.
-WHY: Taeliac and I have been together for about 7 years. Yeah. Long time, huh? We've never taken a vacation together, for some dumbass reason (my fault). So, as she had been really stressing out about work (her business, www.BeAnime.com), I worked it out so that we could go down there for a week. I'm really glad we did, too.
-WHAT: So what'd we do? Well, almost every day, we woke up around 9-ish (which is 8-ish where we're used to in the Central time zone), and we ate a small breakfast or brunch. This was something like toast, or eggs, or waffles. You know, the usual. We did go to an Island Bakery, and I can honestly say that Bahamian Bread is THE BEST I've ever had. Almost every day we either went out floating about at high tide (waist deep) or went out walking along the sand flats at low tide (0"-1"). The tides change every 13 hours, so it's a different time every day. Dinner was usually made by my Grandparents, but on a couple of occassions, we went to a friend's house nearby. Then, at night, we'd usually retire to our cottage at about 9pm-ish. We'd then read for a bit, and start anew the next day.
There were alot of really fun things we did, though. "Highlights", if you will. Here's some of them here:
-we went into town one day, for lunch and shopping. It should be pointed out that, in the Commonwealth of the Bahamian Islands, the 'Conch' is the dietary staple. "What's a Conch", you say? Here's a good primer for 'yah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch . They're incredibly cute critters. If you find one out in the water, you'll see that it has cute little green eyestalks, with little mouth tentacle things. Instead of moving on a squishy bubblegum-like thing like a snail, it has a little finger-like appendage with, basically, a fingernail. It pulls itself along the sand underwater with that. It's actually quite tasty, despite it basically being a giant fried snail. When we went shopping, we stopped at a place and the two of us had "Cracked Conch". That's where you take the conch meat, pound it flat, and fry it up in a batter very much like Tempura. It was quite good. As far as the shopping itself went, we found alot of fun T-Shirts and Jewelry that we couldn't afford. It was fun looking around at stuff.
-let's talk a bit about Bacardi Anejo. Anejo means "aged". The specific Rum in question is actually noted as a "sipping rum", as it tastes and smells like a yummy cross between dark rum and cognac. It's aged for four years, I believe, give or take a year or so. You can practically drink it straight, and some people do. With Coke, however, it's absolutely fantastic. And, because it's made in the Caribbean, (and my Grandma gets a discount due to her clients/customers), it's CHEAP. We brought back 4 bottles with us, and it was only TEN BUCKS a bottle. No tax, duty free. We're currently playing a game called "let's see how long we can make this last".
-on the topic of food, we did also eat at a real snazzy restaurant called "Hummingbirds". The drinks were fabulous (a margarita for me, and a pina colada for Taeliac), and the food was even more so. Maybe it was the 2 drinks that made me daring, but I did try the Escargo. It was out of the shell, and covered in garlic butter and mozzarella. I tasted like a really good mushroom, but I'm glad it was dark...I didn't really want a good look at it before I ate it anyways. I bought a $22.00 Hoyo Cigar, made in Havana Cuba, before we left.
-the next night we went over to Chad & Sharon's House, which was just down the block, also right on the beach. Their house...oh my wow. It's the most luxurious house I've ever seen. I can't even really describe it, but I took tons of pictures. They had family up from Louisiana, and they were kind enough to cook a big Cajun Meal for all of us. Like I said, everyone's family. We had this very interesting stew-like concoction over rice, which was mostly comprised of crawdad/mudbug tails. It was actually pretty darn good, and they had really good sausage and garlic bread to go with it. Of course, Anejo & Coke showed up for dinner, too. Chad is a bit of a Cigar Efficianado, so he showed me how to smoke my huge Cuban I had bought the night prior. I had found out after the fact that it's a "Grade E", which means it's the strongest Cigar you can get. I had a small shot of reserve cognac with it...it was a good time. I surprisingly didn't get sick, either.
-I found out that yes, indeed, my Grandpa "Reginald 'Rex' Albury", along with the aforementioned Chad, are extras aboard Jack Sparrow's ship in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3. They're both members of "The Scurvy Few", a Bahamian Motorcycle Club/Organization. I can't wait to see them both a'hoistin' the main!
-Radio Abaco: the only radio station I could find. They played some of the craziest Island Music I've ever heard. Song's like "Only Meat", which I surmise was about a man wishing he was rich enough that all he ate was meat. It went something like this: "Only meat (only meat), only meat (only meat), don' wan' no potato, jus' wan' da steak, only meat (only meat)." I really hope I can find the song on iTunes or something, because it was GREAT.
-poor Taeliac...her back got burned so badly. We went out for a walk around noon-ish, with heaving sunscreen on (Sport SPF 50). She had a piece of white large fishnet-like fabric around her shoulders to help protect her back...what we didn't realize was that the movement of said fabric over her shoulders rubbed off the suncreen altogether. She got roasted like a hot dog. Her back was bright red, and felt hot to the touch for days. It's mostly peeled off now, about a week later, but that sure was not cool.
-IN SUMMATION: The trip was truly fantastic. It was really great spending time with my love, no TVs, no computers, no phones. We'll have pictures up soon so we can share our terrific time with you all!
- Cap'n Kellin
Other than Sam getting burned, that sounded like an amazing time. Wow.
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