Bahamas Part 1: Abaco and New Years in Hopetown

Rhi and I had a long day of travel ahead of us. Starting with an early flight out of NYC to Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas. Our stay was as long as our wait in the immigration line (accompanied by a local band playing island tunes in one corner of the terminal) as we made our 5 minute taxi ride around to the executive side of the airport and boarded a 8 seater plane to Abaco. It was a very smooth flight over the famous Atlantis hotel as we headed out to our 2nd Island in as many hours. Within minutes of landing after a couple photos with Rhi's first ever small aircraft we were whisked away by James Malcolm (5th Cousin as we have now worked out) along with his kids Andrew and Claire who were on the plane with us. James visited Perth and my relatives decades ago. He has always wanted to see one of us Aussies return the favour by visiting him in the Bahamas. I remember getting a Bahamian surfboard keyring when I was little that was either from James or his dad Richard and thought to myself that I will visit the Bahamas one day. Well here we were in the thick of it! James took us to 'the lodge'. I would rather live here than Julia Gillard's Sydney equivalent. Over the road from one of the best swimming beaches I have ever seen (having said that all the swimming beaches we have seen in the Bahamas are up there with the best, something about the colour that makes them so unique).
After settling into the 2 storey, 6 bedroom (by settling in I mean taking photos of the beach from the balcony, you can see them on my flickr site) we were taken a 30min drive away to a place called Pete's Pub. A very cool sand bottom outdoor pub that serves the fresh catches of the day. The snapper I had was some of the best fish I've ever had. Rhi and I later returned to Pete's for lunch.
The following day we went on a 4wd adventure out to a local lighthouse that not even James had visited. A very cool place considering you can climb up the inside of the old English lighthouse (still scattered with original cupboards and equipment) which is now automated hence its lack of population.

Abacoian English, now automated lighthouse

The views from the top were very cool stretching out over the Bahamian sea's. We spent a couple days chillin on the beach and then slept in for a New Years eve prep.
We drove into Abaco's main town, Marsh Harbour and caught the 15min ferry to Hopetown which is described as the Hollywood of the Bahamas. We cruised around the island on a golfcart, beer in hand before having a six course meal at the Hopetown lodge. We headed back down to Firefly (Hopetown's micro brewery resort - they brew alcoholic iced tea that is really popular with the locals) and counted down a couple more hours down before returning to the main docks to bring in 2012 with quite impressive amateur fireworks. HAPPY NEW YEAR IT WAS! and a 3am bed was well and truly welcomed.

12:01am - 1/1/12 with Claire, Rhi, Andrew, Myself and James

James and his kids returned to Nassau after moving Rhi and I into the guesthouse at Schooner Bay (the large real estate development that James is the Marketing manager for) and left us on the trusty wheels of his very old, yet classic Volvo. We spent the next couple of days exploring different small towns and beaches around Abaco and cooking up storms in the very nice guesthouse kitchen for our temporary room mates Dave and Mandy who look after all the Schooner guests. There are plenty of photos of Schooner bay which is a great real estate project. I will find it hard to not visit in the future with so much intrigue as to how amazing the finished development will be complete with school, fishing lodge, pub and a handy little population.

our lovely room at the guesthouse

Before we knew it our time in Abaco was over and we boarded another small yet slightly louder, older plane to Eleuthera and Harbour Island. It felt like our own charter as the weather was perfect (you could perfectly see the different depths and sand bars of the beautiful aqua below) and we were the only 2 on the plane other than the pilot. Great start to an amazing time in the Bahamas!