Hurricane Irma - September 4, 2017

Monday, September 4, 2017. The moon was brilliant and vibrant. That day was spent kayaking, playing yahtzee and drinking beer. It was a good relaxing day, with no cares in the world. More photos to follow.

Hurricane Irma - September 3, 2017

The views from Little Deadmans Cay to Long Island are stunning when the sun is out. Today, we had a kayak on rent and it was delivered. We enjoyed a short kayak to hunt for shells on another island. At this point, we still didn't realize the hurricane was on its way.



Hurricane Irma - September 2, 2017

Our flight to Deadman's Cay, Long Island was originally scheduled for 7 am. We got to the airport and discovered that the flight was cancelled. The airline sent us an email to notify us but we didn't read the fine print. Sigh. It was so tiny and the picture looked like the original confirmation email. Fortunately, I still had the hotel room key. I weaseled $60 out of the representative and we taxied back to the hotel, leaving our checked bags.

We watched some tv and then went down to Fat Tuesday for a drink. Finally, it was time to leave for the airport and get to our island vacation. We always go to Max's Conch Bar for conch fritters (above), cracked conch, beer and wifi. This is our only place to connect to the internet. At this point, the hurricane started to turn towards the Bahamas. We were blissfully unaware.



After going to the food store, fisherman, and liquor store it was time to load up the boat and get to Little Deadman's Cay. These supplies should suffice for the week on the cay (pronounced key in Bahamian.) It was sunny and steamy hot.

The view of Long Island from Little Deadmans Cay. This is one of many beaches on the cay.

The sun sets over the back deck of the house and it is stunning!

I was trying to capture the full beauty of the sunset. Photos never do it justice.

A Private Island Experience

We started our two week Bahamian adventure by our second visit to Little Deadman's Cay in Long Island Bahamas. Each time, we have learned how to do the trip better. Armed with tuna packets and snorkel gear, we were ready for a good time. We landed on a Sunday and most food stores are closed. Our host, Noel Turquist, talked one of his friends into opening just for us to get supplies. We were there from Sunday to Sunday. Monday, was our huge expedition day and we had plans of kayaking to the open ocean. This means kayaking around several small islands and then hiking across another island until we were met with the ocean.

As we began our arduous journey, we ran close to an angry fisherman. He was heckling and probably cursing at us but we kept on our quest to find the open ocean. We found a couple of good islands for exploring and we made slow progress. Utilizing our GPS, we found a very long island that couldn't be kayaked around easily. Hoping to find open ocean, by hiking across the island, we started trekking. Eventually, we were met with the beautiful open ocean, seen below.

Truly, a stunning view, unmatched by any other part of the Caribbean and we had it all to ourselves. Tuesday, we needed to get fresh fish for dinners and rented a car. We had no plans but to explore the northern end of the island. I came unprepared and ruined our opportunity to explore Adderly's Plantation. We will be back for that. We made it to the Christopher Columbus monument, constructed at the top of a hill on the northern tip of Long Island. The views were gorgeous on all sides.

I made it up the hill in flip flops. Down near the ocean, I found a couple of cool shells and immediately lost them at the same beach. How did I do that? We continued back towards our side of the island, with a quick pit stop to Stella Maris. At Stella Maris, there are million dollar homes, with million dollar views. We also found a random cave, filled with bats. The bats did not appreciate our invasion of their privacy. 

We capped the day of adventure off with a good lunch at Max's Conch Bar and purchasing fresh fish: grouper and snapper, from the fisherman. I will be recapping this trip over many posts in the coming weeks. Please come back to see the next installment of this Bahamian Adventure.