We also found some wonderful shells on our walks, BUT, I keep finding them and Wolf keeps saying they are going to weigh too much in the luggage, will have to see what the outcome is.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
JANUARY 20TH, still on Grand Bahama Island
We also found some wonderful shells on our walks, BUT, I keep finding them and Wolf keeps saying they are going to weigh too much in the luggage, will have to see what the outcome is.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
GRAND BAHAMA ISLAND
We arrived safe and sound after a two hour wait on the tarmac in Toronton to be deiced, felt good to get to warm air when we landed in Nassau on January 8th, 2011, at 2pm, just a couple hours late. Our flight over to Freetown was also delayed so we did not get there until after 6pm. By the time we picked up our rental car and found a grocery store it was after 8pm and dark to start our drive east over 80kms to Pelican Point and Sandy Beach Villas.
The main hwy is unlike any we have at home, more like a very rural road although it is packed down coral. They are a left drive society but the cars also have left hand drive so you are driving on the shoulder side instead of the center line side, good thing there is not alot of traffic and you do not need to pass.
Our bungalow is right on the beach, a group of 5 bungalows in a semi circle, but, ours is off to the side on its own, much more private. Nice one bedroom with kitchen, eating area and sitting area, no TV, but wifi is good.
We drove to the eastern end of the island where a small settlement of McLean's town is, not much there at all, about 50 houses, but their fishing industry is gone and all the boats sit in the yards. They have fished out the conch and the fish, same old story wherever we go lately. There are piles of conch shells lying about, hundreds of them in the piles, do people not understand how long it takes for these to grow?????
So as a result they have no income and live hand to mouth, also none of the homes have gardens, there are no stores(which is probably good as they would be full of junk food and coke). It is a long 100+km drive into Freeport to buy groceries.
The settlement we are in is called Pelican Point, the homes are well maintained but again no indication of work. The family that own the bungalows we are in were building contractors, but, no one is building anymore, so again no work.
We drove into Lucaya which is east of the city centre and drove down some side roads on the way. We drove thru one huge development that had all the infracstucture inplace, cul de sacs, paved roads, power etc and there were only a hand full of finished homes and many unfinished ones. One huge hotel about 15 storys high that was never completed, all just left to be overgrown, shades of Mexico developments. It seems that this spot was left to die about 20 years ago, from the size of trees that were planted.
The area east of Freeport has an amazing amount of canals that were built to make subdivisions so everyone had acess to their boats, These had to have cost an amazing amount of money, all cement shored sides and they run like streets thru the subdivisions.
We went to the Lucaya Market, but, it was not what I had expected, it is alot of stores selling jewellery at a high price and clothing the same, not much for local products
On our search for a cell phone we were surprised to see that the 'DOWNTOWN" consisted of one street about two blocks long that had very few stores, no big box stores, no big shopping centres, actually kind of nice to see. Prices are about the same as at home and most items are imported, not much grown locally.
Another interesting thing we saw is a huge oil storage depot with about 9 very large round tanks, each tank could hold somewhere around 30,000 barrels of oil each. This depot is being built by Statoil a Norwegian sate oil company, but get this IT IS BEING STORED FOR THE USA in case of a crisis. The USA pays rent to th Norwegians to store the oil there.
The weather has been warm and cold, we have just had a couple cool nights, today, January 13th, it is about 17c, but, it will be warming up again by January 15th, so only a couple days of cool and windy. We still get out for our hour walk every morning on the beach. But have to make sure you don't stop too long or that fellow shown above could have you for his lunch!!!!!! Lots of vultures(Bahamian turkey) on the beach.
The sunsets are beautiful, have not seen the green flash as yet. There is a fire pit for evening gatherings with the people from the other bungalow, two couples from Canada.(young ones from Toronto and New Brunswick).
The good thing about the bungalow is that you can cook your own meals and not have to go out to restaurants and pay the big bucks. We did go to a little spot on the beach next to us called 'BAHAMA JOHN'S' and had a rib dinner, it was very good, but, at $18.00 each and $5.00 for a beer it can get pretty expensive.
Our little kitchen does us just fine.
We leave here on January 16th and go towards Freeport about 20kms to another little settlement called High Rock where we have rented a little cottage across from the beach. No wifi there so no updates on the blog until we get over to Long Island on January 23rd.
The main hwy is unlike any we have at home, more like a very rural road although it is packed down coral. They are a left drive society but the cars also have left hand drive so you are driving on the shoulder side instead of the center line side, good thing there is not alot of traffic and you do not need to pass.
We drove to the eastern end of the island where a small settlement of McLean's town is, not much there at all, about 50 houses, but their fishing industry is gone and all the boats sit in the yards. They have fished out the conch and the fish, same old story wherever we go lately. There are piles of conch shells lying about, hundreds of them in the piles, do people not understand how long it takes for these to grow?????
So as a result they have no income and live hand to mouth, also none of the homes have gardens, there are no stores(which is probably good as they would be full of junk food and coke). It is a long 100+km drive into Freeport to buy groceries.
The settlement we are in is called Pelican Point, the homes are well maintained but again no indication of work. The family that own the bungalows we are in were building contractors, but, no one is building anymore, so again no work.
We drove into Lucaya which is east of the city centre and drove down some side roads on the way. We drove thru one huge development that had all the infracstucture inplace, cul de sacs, paved roads, power etc and there were only a hand full of finished homes and many unfinished ones. One huge hotel about 15 storys high that was never completed, all just left to be overgrown, shades of Mexico developments. It seems that this spot was left to die about 20 years ago, from the size of trees that were planted.
The area east of Freeport has an amazing amount of canals that were built to make subdivisions so everyone had acess to their boats, These had to have cost an amazing amount of money, all cement shored sides and they run like streets thru the subdivisions.
On our search for a cell phone we were surprised to see that the 'DOWNTOWN" consisted of one street about two blocks long that had very few stores, no big box stores, no big shopping centres, actually kind of nice to see. Prices are about the same as at home and most items are imported, not much grown locally.
Another interesting thing we saw is a huge oil storage depot with about 9 very large round tanks, each tank could hold somewhere around 30,000 barrels of oil each. This depot is being built by Statoil a Norwegian sate oil company, but get this IT IS BEING STORED FOR THE USA in case of a crisis. The USA pays rent to th Norwegians to store the oil there.
The good thing about the bungalow is that you can cook your own meals and not have to go out to restaurants and pay the big bucks. We did go to a little spot on the beach next to us called 'BAHAMA JOHN'S' and had a rib dinner, it was very good, but, at $18.00 each and $5.00 for a beer it can get pretty expensive.
Our little kitchen does us just fine.
We leave here on January 16th and go towards Freeport about 20kms to another little settlement called High Rock where we have rented a little cottage across from the beach. No wifi there so no updates on the blog until we get over to Long Island on January 23rd.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
country side of PEI
fishing harbour
country side of PEI
Nice home in Summerside PEI
Confederation Bridge New Brunswick to PEI
lighthouse displaying the Acadian colors in New Brunswick
check out this face!!!!
this was not a tasty lobster
One of the many interesting buildings in Quebec City
Gate into Old Town Quebec City
Parliament Hill
some of the changing trees
nose shot of the doe
Our visiting fox
Sharing the apple
