Days 3 - 5

Day 3 - Monday (Great Stirrup Cay): A four mile hike… right…

Okay, so, we woke up a little early so that we could head out to Norwegian’s private island, Great Stirrup Cay.  We were docked just off-shore, so we had to take a ferry over from the boat to the island.  Mom and I had an excursion booked for that day, our first.  When we arrived at the island, she and I headed over to a little cabana where the excursions were set up.  One word: parasailing.  It was AMAZING!  We rode out with these two local guys, to older gentlemen from Charleston, WV, and a mom and her two daughters.  The two older guys went up first.  It was warm, and the day was perfect for something like that.  When they came down after between 7 and 10 minutes in the air, it was Mom and me’s turn.  I sat in the front and she sat behind me.  They took off and sent us flying.  It was breathtaking.  So quiet.  And the water was so clear that, even where we were high in the air, it was like you could see the bottom.  We could see the entire island and went close to our boat.  When they were pulling us down, we got a nice cold dip in the water, thanks to our boat driver, and much to the cheering of the other passengers on the boat.  Overall, just so fantastic; I can’t put it into words.  The other members of our party went and then we were sent on a speed ride back to the beach.  On the way, we saw some real-life flying fish.  These little things shoot out of the water and take off across the top of the water, wings/fins flapping, like 200 feet at a go, best we can figure.  Once we arrived back to the beach, we met up with Allie and Dad and the three girls got set up on the beach, while Dad went and found a hammock to nap in.  There was reading, and sunning, and Mom and Allie sat in the water for awhile, in beach chairs of course.  After a little while, we all decided to look around a few little shops near the beach and saw a sign for a lighthouse.  So, the sign says that the lighthouse is 2 miles, which would mean a 4 mile trip all-around.  We set out.  Mile one wasn’t bad.  By mile 1.5, it was hot, we couldn’t see the lighthouse, and we weren’t sure we were going to make it.  Randomly, about 1.25 miles in, we pass this seven-foot by seven-foot piece of concrete with white lines painted on it; next to it was a sign that read, “Great Stirrup Cay International Airport,” above signs that said arrival and departure – an idea of a joke in the Bahamas.  Frankly, it was a nice break in the tree monotony that had been the rest of the hike.  We finally saw the lighthouse, which was, literally, just a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, nothing else around it.  We had been told that there was a stunning little cove just down from the lighthouse, so we walked another quarter-mile down to the cove, which was beautiful.  It was totally empty of people and we just marveled at the quiet and the clear water and fish.  A perfect little area.  Then… yup… we hiked back.  4 miles, round trip.  Good times.  When we got back to the beach, we went back to the ferry, then the boat.  After getting cleaned up, we went down to dinner at the Seven Seas.  Post-dinner, we went to hear a comedian, Sam Griesbaum (no joke), who was the entertainment for the night, a pretty funny guy.  Between the two shows that he would do for the night (one at 7.30 and one at 9.45), there was bingo.  We decided we wanted to play.  We lost.  Not much more to say.  Then, because of being drained by the evil sun, we all watched a little “The Dark Knight” went to bed early.

Day 4 - Tuesday (Nassau/Atlantis): You thought the walk yesterday was bad…

We had to be up and on the dock at 9.15am, which was great for everyone, but we were there.  Dad forgot a hat and had to go back to get one, shocker.  We followed a guide around, through a little marketplace and customs, to a ferry to take us over to Paradise Island, where the Atlantis hotel and casino is located.  The islands are right next to each other, so the boat trip was only 10 or 15 minutes.  We knew that the area was spread out, but we had no idea.  After following a quick-footed little tour-guide through the area, we ended up at a beach, where we could spend the day, or we could wander the property.  Originally, we had planned to walk around for awhile, then chill on the beach, possibly.  We slogged down the beach to put our towels down, and I literally mean slogged, because the sand is imported, making it thick and extremely hard to walk through.  We headed back out to the path, away from the beach, and walked out to examine the map and explore.  We, obviously, were not comprehending that, when the ferry guide told us that the property sat on something like 500 acres, that was a lot of ground to cover.  And we did.  Multiple times.  Needless to say, the entire complex is stunning, composed of penthouses, two hotels, a timeshare area, waterslides, pools, aquariums with lots of fish/sharks/etc, and a multitude of shops and restaurants.  Everything is beautiful and there was much picture taking as we explored.  However, no one thought about us walking that much, so none of us had donned the appropriate footwear.  Pain ensued.  There was taking off of flip-flops and treading on hard concrete.  Much pain.  The entire place is meant to be like what Atlantis could/might have been like, including ruins for aquariums, temples for waterslides, random statues and symbols everywhere.  Included in such statues is one composed solely of these sculpted clear crystals – total value: $1 million.  Yup, you read that right.  For one sculpture.  Other than the walking thing, it was a nice day to walk around the area.  We went through a little tourist-y shopping type area just outside the Atlantis and got ice cream, which was yum.  We took the ferry back to Nassau, deciding to walk around the straw market for awhile before we went back to the ship.  When I say straw market, the old one got burnt down last year and they have relocated.  The space is probably the size of a block, one-story building.  Crammed in this space, probably a hundred to a hundred and fifty vendors have set up stalls in long, thin aisles, basically on top of each other.  Very VERY crowded, particularly for the claustrophobic like myself.  Allie got a nice knock-off Coach bag for next to nothing; mom got a cute giraffe and red print Dooney and Bourke bag for cheap, and I got a Prada knock-off for very little.  None of them were real, but that doesn’t really matter, now does it?  After the exhaustion of the day, we barely made it back to the boat and, after getting cleaned up, we went to get dinner and headed back to the room, where we proceeded to read and watch “Ghostrider”, then “The Dark Knight”.  HAHAHA.  Then bed.  Yay.

Day 5 - Wednesday (Freeport/Port Lucaya): Way, hey, and up she rises…

Mom and I had an excursion early, with shopping and a tour, while Dad and Allie’s left a little later, to go snorkeling.  We all ate breakfast before going our separate directions.  Mom and I boarded a bus, driven by Roly Poly Alexander Junior, which then proceeded to take us to three stops. We learned random facts along the way.  I will share them with you like they were shared with us.  Freeport/Lucaya is actually a privately owned, leased property, currently on year 53 of a 99-year lease, by a lumber company.  Once you buy a piece of property, if it is privately owned, you don’t have a time limit with which to build on it, you can take forever… the government wants natives to own their own homes.  The people build their own foundations with materials produced on the island, then move into shacks created on the property, pouring their previous rent money into buying the imported materials for the roof and windows and doors.  In Freeport/Lucaya, you drive on the wrong side of the road, the left side, but, since cars have to be imported, you can drive on either the left or right side of the car (the steering wheel can be on either side).  Price of gas is currently lower there than it has been in 8 years, at 3.00 a gallon; two weeks ago, it was at 5.75 a gallon.  Natives can be arrested for gambling in the casinos built on the islands (a $300 fine for the first time, then jail time); they have to gamble in their own gambling houses set up in the ghetto.  On a given Sunday morning, 80% of the businesses are closed and 75% of those people are in church – mostly Baptist, not Catholic.  Because Hurricane Francis poured over between 5 and 6 feet of water on the Bahamas and left Freeport standing in that water for months, there are hotels and buildings just standing empty – one hotel that employed 1300 people never reopened after the hurricane because of the standing water.  Average pay is between $5 and $9 per hour.  Wow, you had enough yet?  So, our first stop was the Freeport Farmer’s Market.  There was pretty much a lot of the same stuff as in Nassau’s farmer’s market, so Mom and I walked across the street to a bakery.  We bought this huge cinnamon bun… SO GOOD!  The next stop we made was to Taino Beach, a popular, local, public beach.  We didn’t stay there long, but it was a beautiful spot.  We proceeded to our last stop at Port Lucaya Marketplace, which is basically a loose collection of shops and stalls in this strip.  Surprisedly, we bumped into Allie and Dad there.  Apparently, due to some high winds, they didn’t get to go snorkeling, so, thanks to my brilliant sibling, they caught a taxi and headed to where the cabbie told them we were most likely to be.  We all wandered around; I bought a hat (because I kept getting sunburned, particularly when we go to the beach).  Finally, we told Allie and Dad that we’d meet them at the boat and headed back, via bus again.  After cleaning up and eating, again, we chilled for awhile before dinner and a show.  We were expecting to see a juggler which, when you consider that the theater had ceilings that were only 8 feet, would have been entertaining in itself.  However, when we got there, our cruise director, Ered, informed us that, because the juggler’s luggage had gotten lost at the Nassau airport, he would be unable to perform; so he and another entertainer had thrown something together.  Now, I say that to say this – Ered was a good cruise director and he didn’t have an awful singing voice.  But when he said, “We’re gonna have a sing-along, and we’re going to sing a traditional sea shanty,” I was done.  We were FORCED to sing along with all 80 verses of “What do we do with a drunken sailor?”  At which point, the Bradshaw family took off.  It was just too much.  We proceeded to make stupid sea shanty jokes the rest of the night.  Ask us, we can tell you the words.  The sea, speaking of it, was really rough because of the wind; we could tell because, as we were sitting at dinner, you could literally see other people, particularly your family, swaying back and forth.  Funny stuff.  It was like everyone onboard had been drinking, even those of us who were sober.  Lots of swaying.