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, Part II

Wednesday at Little Deadman's Cay, we had an early morning call from the host. He thought it was a good day to go snorkeling and lobstering. We didn't want to say no and agreed to meet him at the dock. 

The private island comes with this dock and two boats (plus the kayak that we used most of the time). Noel picked us up and headed out to where he planned to hunt for lobster. These critters are also called crawfish and do not have claws like Maine lobsters have. They are just as delicious and melt in your mouth. I have no pictures of the lobsters themselves because I didn't really want to get too close to them. They freaked me out a little.

Crawfish tails

Cooked fresh crawfish

We tried to snorkel on this trip and it just was not very easy. The water was moving at a fast pace and I held onto the boat and did not venture any where. Next time, we will be hiring a guide to take us kayaking because Noel does not know much about it. He's a fisherman and a landscaper besides being host to the island. That's quite typical for life on Long Island. Most everyone has two or three jobs to survive. While that seems like a lot of work, everyone I met was happy and no one complained about living on Long Island.

Thursday, we attempted another kayak trip but it was difficult and we gave up easily. This kayak has no rudder or steering mechanism. Its really difficult to head the course you want and there's lots of extra paddling. We did convince Noel to pick us up and take us to get more beer. We treated him to lunch at Max's Conch Bar. Max's has breadfruit chips, cracked conch, and a fresh conch salad that Max is very proud of. The food is delicious and the staff are friendly. Usually we hang out at the bar with Max and his wife Liz.

I have one more recap of the Private Island Experience and then I will be recapping Sandals Emerald Bay at the Exumas.

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.