Long Island tour and Dean's Blue Hole

Today was a bit different. We rented a car and drove around the southern half of Long Island in the Bahamas.

The rental was cheap, $75, cash. Plus $5 for fuel.

Driving here is like driving in the UK or Australia. The driver is on the right side of the car, and cars drive on the left side of the road. I have some experience with this, granted from many years ago, but it wasn't entirely new for me.

No mishaps, no close calls, it was fine.

We made our way southeast to Clarence Town, where we stopped at the Lighthouse Point restaurant for lunch. The view looked over the bay where we had anchored last year in June. The food was good, but expensive, as is normal for the Bahamas.

On our way out, we stopped at the local farmer's market to see what they had. We picked up a few small green papayas and some very small bananas, but they didn't have anything else.

These should ripen in time for our trip to Puerto Rico.

We stopped at Dean's Blue Hole just a bit west of Clarence Town.

I don't know what we were expecting, but this was sssoooooooo much better than we could have hoped. I really wish we had brought our freediving gear. We have got to come back and spend more time here. Everything about the place is beautiful from the soft sand beaches, water colors shifting from clear glass to deep blue, the sounds of waves crashing over the reef at the entrance of the bay, the amazing rock formations...

A "blue hole" is kind of like a sink hole, but into the ocean. They can be fairly shallow, or very very deep. This one is very very deep.

The beach here was quite long, and wonderful just to stroll, occasionally dipping our feet into the warm waters.

Back at the car, we retraced our path to the main road and stopped by an apiary (a bee "farm"). We were looking forward to buying some local honey, but sadly nobody was home.

Eventually, we found ourselves back at the car rental place (Seaside Car rentals), and dropped off the keys.

While we were gone, the mail boat had arrived and unloaded its wares. Supplies are delivered to the islands via the "mail boat", which usually runs weekly. This is part of why things are so expensive in the Bahamas.

We stopped by the local grocery and picked up some fresh fruit and veggies, then hopped in the dinghy and returned to the boat.

As we arrived at the dinghy dock, we saw someone struggling to get his outboard motor started, accompanied by muffled sounds of grunting and cursing. The two people standing on the dock looked mildly amused, and mildly annoyed. We offered to give them a tow back to their boat, but the guy trying to pull start the reluctant motor was determined to succeed. We gave them our boat name and cell phone number in case they changed their minds. We heard cheers of success before we had gotten more than 100 feet from the dock.

It was an amazing day. We are looking forward to coming back.