Bahamas Part 2: Harbour Island & Nassau

Our cottage's living area

On another small plane we flew off to Eleuthera with amazing views of the various crystal clear ocean depths below. We dumped the small islander into the runway, jumped in a road taxi and 5 minutes later took a water taxi to Harbour Island. Richard and his daughter Sam Malcolm picked us (and our 6 or 7 bags) up off the island's main dock in one golf cart which made for a very crowded 5 minute ride to our cottage. 

Flanders Cottage. Sunset

They dropped us off at our 'Flanders' residence and gave us an hour to realise how ridiculously spoilt we were, before taking us on a golf cart driven tour of the small island. Its a very cool little island. The west side is the protected harbour side which hosts several docks and the main town shops and bars as well as 1st class sunsets. The east side is a long stretch of beach (3 miles) called Pink Sands beach, which would challenge any in the world for beauty and swimming conditions. There are also a couple resorts as well as amazing homes lining the dunes. Most of our days consisted of a sleep in, breakfast and then a good couple of hours on this wonderful beach. We visited the larger neighbouring island of Eleuthera a couple times which included a visit to Preachers Cave, Rock Sound, glass window, Tippy's (a great ocean decked cafe), an inland ocean hole/underground cave (pretty much looks like a dam but connects underground to the ocean), and Twin Brothers restaurant for daiquiri's and conch fritters. Speaking of Conch, we spent 2 days on the boat with Sam, checking out small nearby islands for coral, glass and shell treasures and also some conching! The second day we stepped up our efforts by towing yours truly behind the boat with a ski rope and diving goggles. Just before I returned to the boat for a rest the big shell caught my eye and I had officially caught a conch. To explain for those playing at home a conch is like a massive sea snail which lives in some of the most beautiful shells the ocean offers. They can be quite large and are a large part of the staple Bahamian diet. They eat these alien looking creatures in many different ways: sliced up straight out of the shell with lime; mixed up and fried into fritters; deep fry them as cracked conch; or fried with coconut; made into a salad or burger - and we tried them almost every way. Delicious. So I was proud to be back on the boat with my very own. Later we spotted what looked like a whopping conch! We then managed to lose it numerous times but visited the area again just before heading home. We spotted the large pink shaped and Rhi was down to her bathers and in the water faster than you can say "its quite shallow". She returned to the surface with a massive conch. Sam's uncle got the slugs out of the shells for us so we are now carrying (until we can mail home) 2 beautiful conch shells for the pool room. We also took a day trip with Sam to Spanish Wells (an island close by full of wealthy albino fisherman) and Russell Island.

James also visited us on harbour Island for a day and showed us around the impressive Pink Sands resort that used to be owned by the Malcolm's. We also watched a bit of Sunday night playoffs in the NFL. James gave me my first lesson in the rules and I backed the underdog, (and now follow) the New York Giants. Sam was an amazing tour guide during our stay on the island and we miss her as much as we miss Briland. She toured us (in Jeep, golf cart and boat) through the island highlights such as Ramora Bay for their famous frozen Goombay Smash cocktails (fruit, smashed ice, rum), the Shack where she works for cheeky conch fritters and the odd night club for great Bahamian tunes and drinks.

Sam, Rhi and I exploring Eleuthera. Near glass window bridge.

We are also extremely grateful for Sam's parents Richard and Lemmie's hospitality and enjoyed going out to their favourite restaurant on the beach (Acquapazza), having us up to their wonderful home for dinner on several occasions, picking and dropping us off at the dock and most of all letting us stay in one of their beautiful island style cottages. We lived in serious comfort and were able to really relax from travelling and just holiday. The batteries were charged and unfortunately it was time to farewell harbour island… for now.

Sunset off the cottage veranda

The three hour ferry took us back to the capital Nassau and we enjoyed dinner with some of Sam's relo's and her boyfriend. Nassau certainly doesn't have the magic of the islands but it does have Atlantis! James hooked us up with a couple tickets and we spent a day at the amazing hotel/waterpark/casino/world. We tried out every waterside and visited all the awesome aquariums full of sharks, jellyfish, seahorses, manta rays, dolphins and the like. We finished our Bahamian visit with dinner down at the well known fish fry with James and his two kids Claire and Andrew. The day after we thanked James for an amazing month in a place that we will never forget and are bound to visit again.

Back to real travel we flew…

Had to grab the Canon at 3am to get this shot out the dunny window. Moonset.

All pics up on flickr - MAH