Its time...
We’ve been asked by several people what some of our favorite memories are from the trip. Its been difficult, but we came up with the following list…
Island
Erin: Sampson Cay. It was the place we stayed the longest ( 25 days total ), and probably the one we will remember the most. Lots of snorkeling, beaches, shells, new friends ( locals and tourists ) and nearby islands to visit.
Braden: Agree with Erin, close enough to other islands, but good enough on its own to not need to leave often.
Excursion
Erin: Swimming pigs at Big Majors. I loved it so much that we went twice!
Braden: Our first night trip with a local in his power boat. We left the dock at Sampson Cay headed for Staniel Cay Yacht Club – at full throttle, in the dark, with no navigation lights on the boat at all. In addition, there are several sandbars and large rocks above water on the route. We were headed to have dinner and drinks, which meant we had to head back afterward. I was sure Erin was going to pee her pants.
Snorkeling location
Erin: Thunderball Grotto. It was the place I was least excited about going… something about swimming into a cave just isn’t my thing. But I’m glad we did it!
Braden: Thunderball Grotto for a few reasons – we had just come up with a dinghy ladder because we were worried we wouldn’t be able to get back out of the water – and it worked! Also, the cave was beautiful, the fish were plentiful and there is the movie history as well.
Beach combing location
Erin: Its a tie between Bimini that had tons of sea glass, and Sampson Cay which had tons of sand dollars and large shells.
Braden: For me, it is definitely Bimini – the beach was postcard-esque and it was our first taste of the Bahamas. My favorite place to relax on the beach was under the gazebo at Sampson Cay.
Meal on the boa****t
Erin: Anything with Johnny’s Garlic Spread ( pictured below ). We happened to grab this while we were stocking up at CostCo before we left. The uses are endless… and all of them delicious – garlic bread, meatballs, pasta sauce, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, etc. If you happen to see it… GET IT! It is awesome.
Braden: Any meal that Erin made with garlic bread. I am not sure if it was the garlic spread, butter, Bahamian bread or the boat – but I could never get enough of it. Honorable mention: In the store at Sampson Cay there was a tray of 12 cinnamon rolls that I had set my sights on from day one. There was no way I was going to eat 12 before they went bad ( Erin doesn’t like them ) and I knew they’d be expensive. I tried negotiating and bartering with the store manager with no luck. Erin ended up making a batch for me from scratch and I decided to find out how much we saved – the 12 pack was $19.00 – and I know that Erin’s were way better.**
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Meal off the boat**
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Erin: After a 20+ hour trip from Bimini to Nassau we were exhausted and hungry. When we got to Nassau we checked in at the marina, then tried the restaurant located on site. The restaurant is only open for lunch, and unfortunately it was only 9:30 AM. The lady at the desk recommended Charlie’s for breakfast. Down the street, behind the gas station. We were the only non-Bahamians in the restaurant and the place was packed. We took one of the last tables. The waitress came over and we asked for a menu. No menu. It was "stewfishboilfishstewconch…". We had no clue what she said. Finally we asked what she recommended. We ended up with stew fish, grits and jonnycake. If I wasn’t totally exhausted I probably would have suggested we go somewhere else, but it turned out to be the most fantastic, non-traditional breakfast I have ever had. Honorable mention: Pizza at Sampson Cay Club. The thin crust pizza was fantastic, plus you can’t beat 2 for 1 Thursdays.
Braden: Our time in the Exumas Land & Sea Park was amazing and worth it all, but after 5 days of eating on the boat and running out of everything "fresh", all I could think about was pizza. We pulled into the Sampson Cay marina and one of their specialties was… pizza! I almost fell out of my chair, but it was then that I knew this was our spot for a while.
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Marina
Erin: Dinner Key Marina in Miami. Decent showers and laundry facilities. Located in Coconut Grove. Short walking distance to CocoWalk – shopping, restaurants and movie theater.
Braden: Toss up here – for purely just the marina, I really enjoyed Bahia Mar in Ft. Lauderdale the most because they had floating docks. For non-boaters out there… floating docks are a dream. You just tie the boat up tight against the dock and as the tide goes up and down the dock goes with the boat. Amazing! Honorable mention: Dinner Key Marina in Miami. The marina is run by the city and generally offers very little in the way of services or boating friendly staff – but the sheer volume of boats there requires good showers, good bathrooms, good security, good power, etc.
Showers**
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Erin: Dinner Key in Miami. The shower stalls were huge, the water pressure was great and there was always hot water.
Braden: Sampson Cay. They started out as the worst showers of all – $4.00 for 8 minutes. The machine that took the tokens did not really work, so we got free, long showers most of the time. The water pressure was good, the shower head was in the ceiling instead of the wall and it never ran out of hot water.**
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Laundry facility
Erin: Bahia Mar in Ft. Lauderdale. Tons of washers and dryers. All in working order. No wait.
Braden: Erin did laundry, but have to agree here. At Sampson Cay we paid $8.00 to wash and dry a load and inevitably always had wet clothes hanging around the boat to dry ( pictured below ). At Dinner Key, there was always a wait. In Nassau it was dirty, crowded and expensive.
Picture
Erin: One of our Christmas presents this year was a Cannon PowerShot D10 underwater camera. We definitely recommend it. Not only is it waterproof, but it takes amazing pictures. We used it for a lot of the pictures, even if they weren’t under water. It is difficult to pick just one favorite out of the 3,500 pictures we took… but I can’t believe how cool this one turned out.
Braden: My favorite picture is one of our boat at Warderick Wells. The picture itself is not an amazing shot – but of all the things I wanted to do on the trip – standing on top of Boo Boo Hill and taking a picture of our boat on the mooring ball with all the different colors of water around the boat was the most important for me. It pains me to say it, but the best photo has to be one of the underwater shots of the conch or crab that Erin took.
Quote
Erin: "Why does David Copperfield need the internet guy to install internet on his island? He’s David Copperfield. He should just go poof… there’s internet."
Braden: No contest on this one, in the context of the situation and the parties involved, it was one of the funniest things ever.
