So let me just start out by saying that the Bahamas is definitely a GORGEOUS place worth seeing at some point in your life. I hope that I can return one day but it probably won't be until my children are older or I get to leave them at home. It was certainly a struggle for this mama to travel nearly 2,000 miles from Colorado to Abaco, Bahamas with an almost 3 year old and a 16 month old in tow. My mother, father, brother and sister-in-law were all as much help as they could be (and I'm grateful) but they too were on vacation to enjoy themselves and get away from the every day hustle and bustle. This was a vacation for the books in all aspects. Remember Murphy's Law, 'anything that can go wrong - will go wrong'? This was our vacation to a T! To spare you lengthy details here is my short version of the bahamian chaos: It started with fraudulent activity on the VRBO website and all of our money to reserve our vacation home was hacked by terrorists in London (problem was eventually resolved but not with a happy ending for all). Then my mother came down with pneumonia less than a week before we were set to depart (she felt well enough to travel but probably shouldn't have). Tthe day before our flight my youngest turns up sick with a runny nose and a fever, the same evening I get a call from AA that our flight for 6:30 the next morning had been cancelled due to inclement weather in Dallas and after several hours on the phone (thank you mom) we were placed on a flight departing at 6:30 pm but we now were faced with a 4 hour layover in Phoenix. We arrived in Nassau, Bahamas just after 9 am and still had to catch one more flight to our destination island. We missed our flight, thanks AA. The next one was not scheduled until 6 pm! We were all exhausted from flying all night and the little ones slept maybe 2 hours on the plane. Oh well, it is what it is and we then had to wait another 8 hours at the airport. Shortly after receiving the news we were all resting on park benches in a cute little courtyard of the airport when my two year old suddenly starts screaming that ants were bitting her toes. She was screaming hysterically and no one could find any sign of bugs. We decided to go get a hotel room so my girls could rest for the next several hours and get out of the heat but even a couple hours later and my daughter was still crazy out of her mind. So bad in fact that I ended up taking her to a bahamian emergency room where nurses and staff were convinced that a stranger in the airport had possibly drugged my child. She needed rest but as any caring mother would do, I wanted her checked to be sure. After all, we were hanging out in the courtyard surrounded by foreign plants and I wasn't so sure that she hadn't gotten into something poisonous.
After the fiasco at the hospital we were finally back on a quick 20 min flight to Abaco and arrived just after dark. Go figure, I had to wait another 12 hours for the sun to come up before I could even see my beautiful surroundings. I couldn't wait though, I was up with the sun!! Now on to the fun part....
The house was HUGE and stunning for ocean front property! We had ocean on both sides of us. The view above was right out my bedroom door and I could look straight down into the water. That's where I snapped the photo of this little fella.
We had a private and quaint little beach just on the other side where my girls spent most of their time looking for seashells. It was a great beach for shell hunting and there were no waves which I was thrilled about because the undertow can be so scary. In fact, the water was so shallow that you could walk for a quarter of a mile and it only came up to your waist.
My brother (Kaye Donne) spent some time hand fishing in the shallow waters and turned up with a barracuda on more than one occasion.
Of course I couldn't go on vacation and not enjoy myself just a little bit (everyday)! Cheers!
I spent a lot of the time close to the house just for the safety of my little ones but finally ventured out with the family to the other side of the island to a little place called Petes Pub. That's where we found all of these fun creatures. The girls even had hermit crab races with their adventurous uncle!
After Pete's pub we ventured even farther to a place called Cherokee Sound. This is by far the most beautiful, desolate place I have ever been. Almost spooky. Mom and I walked out to the end of one of the docks that extend a long ways out into the water.
When we got to the end she had spotted a Conch shell in the water and so badly wanted to take it home. When she finally reached the surface with the shell we found these gross little things inside!
One of the first things I did when I found out we were going to the Bahamas was I booked a family Photographer! My little family trio was in need of fall pictures anyway so I decided just to wait and hire someone to capture our fun away from home. That Photographer was Susan Davis with Frangipani Photography. We met her at the ferry one morning and she rode with us to Hopetown, a the cutest island with bright colorful homes and business all packed in around the harbor and the famous lighthouse. There was no where to shop for boutique clothing on Abaco island so I dressed myself and girls for fun. I knew we would be playing on the beach so there was no sense in getting all dolled up, we needed to fit the part. I packed my camera with me so that I could sight see and snap photos of my own but Susan could see how bad I was struggling with two toddlers at my ankles. When she sent me the images to review a week later I was so tickled to see that she had captured the scenery and details for me! I will say it again, she was AMAZING and so much fun! My girls and I had a blast and I have already ordered hundreds of dollars worth of artwork for our walls.
Thank you Bahamas! We will see you again one day!!