April 10, 2009.

We spent the day following our arrival in Rock Sound trapped on the boat. The wind was between 25 and 30 knots for most of the day. The ride at anchor was pleasant enough it was just that there was no place to get ashore without leaving the dinghy dangerously exposed.

So we waited until Wednesday before we even dropped the dinghy into the water. There are 2 good places to leave the dink. The first is the official dinghy dock. To call it hazardous is not unreasonable. The other place is the dock attached to a local waterfront pub. Either dock really requires no big winds from the west. We headed into town to check out the local grocery store. We walked around a bit and found the Post Office and took care of some mail. Then we went to a local eatery called Sammies. Great food, good prices but I was only there for the ice cream. I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a hot fudge sundae, it was glorious. That’s right Mom, ice cream for lunch…….

Most of the Bahamanians are very religious so it only stands to reason that Easter is a biggie. The kids get 2 weeks off from school and Eleuthera schedules their “Homecoming Festival” during this time period. The festival was due to start on Thursday so we took a walk down to see how they were making out getting things ready. The food stalls were built and the ever present sound system was in place so things looked pretty much ready to go.

On Thursday we again went into town. This time we did some serious food shopping, hit the liquor store and filled a propane tank. It costs about 6 bucks to fill our propane tank in the states. The tank usually lasts us about 10 weeks. Here it cost us $21 fill, I almost shit but then again everything is more expensive here. We watched as a local woman paid over $400 for one shopping cart full of groceries. I don’t know how they can afford to live.

Wifi is a little touch and go here. The local wifi baron is a bit of an ass and he charges $10 per half hour for the privilege of standing in his shop to use your laptop. So it was with great interest that we listened to tales of the sidewalk in front of the grocery store being a wifi hotspot. So we brought our laptop with us when we went to do our shopping. Yep, they were right. Christy stood in front of the grocery store for over an hour chatting on line with people from home.

We had made dinner reservations for the evening at a place across the island. There were ten of us going and Rose’s Nort’side sent 2 cars to pick us all up for the trip to the restaurant. The place is bizarre. You walk in the restaurant door into a bar area that has palm fronds hanging from the ceiling. I felt like Gulliver ducking and weaving my way through the low hanging ceiling treatment. The floor is raked beach sand and the décor is “Rustic Gilligan”.

There is a large dining room and as you walk around you can pretty much walk right into the kitchen. The place is located atop a bluff looking out over the Atlantic Ocean. You grab a drink and descend the ancient staircase to the beach. You can do some shelling along the beach as you wait for your dinner to be prepared.

Dinner was great and the portions were immense. After dinner we were driven back to town and dropped off near the dinghy dock. We headed back to the boat where we were entertained by Caribbean music, loud Caribbean music, no, extremely loud Caribbean music until 0200. With a wall of 10 foot speakers the music actually starts to feel like its penetrating your body. It’s kinda funny, some people really complain about the loudness of the music. One couple even moved their boat further down the beach when they realized where the speakers were set up. We just try and take the attitude that’s its just one more experience to be savored.