The theme for this trip could be, "spend lots of time traveling from site to site and not spending much time at the sites. " I think this partly because of the layout of the Bahamas, where little towns dot the islands with narrow stretches of road between, and partly because our schedule is jam packed.
Today we spent the entire day on a day trip to Eleuthera Island. (Pronounced El-Lu-Thra) Eleuthera is on the far eastern edges of the islands which make up the Bahamas. It's shaped like a capital I and is the home of the original capital. The Capital was moved because of the general inaccessibility of the town, the bay is really shallow and there is something called the "Devil's Backbone." This is a long spine of reef that projects from the water when the tide is low and make navigating into the harbor in the daytime really tricky and at night nearly impossible. Therefore the capital was moved to New Providence.
The only way to get to Eleuthera is by airplane, or by a ferry. We took the Ferry which involved a 2 1/2 hour voyage across the Caribbean Sea. I spent the majority of my time on the observation deck watching the water slide and spray past while humming alternately the Pirates of the Caribbean (which annoyed a few people) and Gilligan's Island (which annoyed everyone.) It was a happy time, there wasn't much to see but at least I was out in the sun and the sea is beautiful.
Eleuthera is one of the oldest colonized islands. It gained most of its popularity/ population during the revolutionary war when Loyalists wanted to get the hell out of the states and found the nearest English Colony that looked like it wasn't going anywhere.
During our tour of Eleuthera we drove through several small villages. These aren't as nice as the homes in the capital but they hold a certain charm. Eleuthera is also a place where lots of high profile stars build homes. It's remote enough that they can be left alone apparently. We drove past Lenny Kravitz's recording studio (anyone who knows me will understand that I am probably the only 24 year old who'd be excited about that). But other stars that frequent the island are Mariah Carey and various NBA stars (namely Bron Bron and Magic Johnson.) It's also the backdrop of several movies, the most recent being "Why did I get Married too", and that movie with Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson.
We visited several natural sites for about 10 minutes each (let's not go into how frustrated that makes me.) We enjoyed 2 minutes at a pineapple farm. Eleuthera actually started growing Pineapples in this hemisphere, they then shipped them to Hawaii where they flourished. We spent 10 minutes at the pink sand beach, where coral and shells crunch up and gather throughout the sand to give it a pinkish hue. We spent 5 minutes at the glass window bridge, where the Atlantic and Caribbean sea run into each other. On one side of the bridge is the Atlantic, in its usual deep blue, crashing and seething against the cliffs; on the other is the Caribbean sea, which is is calm and a startling aqua marine. We finished with 10 minutes in Preacher's Cave. This is a large cave carved into the limestone bedrock of the island. It served as a shelter for a shipwrecked captain and crew in the early 1700s, then became an actual church some 50 years later. The church part is particularly interesting because seats, pulpits, and a baptismal font have been carved into the rock of the cave.
One other thing worth mentioning was lunch. We ate at a local deli that served only Bahamian food. This means for lunch I wolfed down fried grouper ( I'm not a fan of fish but this was good), fried conch (Yes the giant snail thing, it's manageable with ketchup), and beans and rice. The meal was excellent which I was very pleasantly surprised by.
Tomorrow we spend more time indoors. We are visiting two different schools, a private primary school here, and the College of the Bahamas. Hopefully we'll be done early enough to have some free time. There's a resort down the road that was built by Bob Marley's widow and has a Marley theme. I'm dying to check it out.
Happy update: I finally got some color on my face and arms!
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