Saturday, February 07, 2009

Eleuthera, Bahamas - February 7, 2009

The Emerald Priincess couldn't dock at shore here at Princess Cays. The ship dropped anchor away from shore and prepared to shuttle passengers ashore via tenders. We tendered ashore at 8:45 to meet our shore-excursion guide.

Facts I learned on our 4 1/2 hour tour of Eleuthera:

  • Eleuthera (uh LEW thruh) means "freedom"
  • towns are called "settlements"
  • Island shows a strong connection to its Christian beginnings
  • Island was settled for religious freedom
  • "'ail" mean to greet or to wave, which people do regardless of whether they know you or not.
  • "I come terecly" - I'll be right there.
  • "Don't yuck up my vexation!" - don't make me mad.
  • "right here between Oh Lord and Thank God!" - I'm fine, okay.
  • "mix up like poke salat" - confused
  • "look here now..." - conversation starter
  • "you don't have no broughtupsy" - you're rude
  • national flower is the Yellow Elder

Our driver is the uncle of Olympic 200m winner at Beijing. I made a picture of a large sign honoring the Olympian.

We saw damage from 1979 Hurricane David.

We visited a museum and Police station (didn't write down the name of the town) and took pics with the female police chief, Sergeant Brown. We also visited the "bottomless hole", fed fish there and tasted tamarind. We picked long pods of seeds from Ponciana trees to make music.

In Tarpon Bay we stopped at a beautiful old Anglican church then went out on the stinky fishing pier. We saw McMillan Castle (built only in 1970)

Our lunch stop was at 4-points Bar and Grill. We had a buffet of conch fritters, coconut-breaded wings, and mac and cheese with pina colada rolls for dessert and coconut-water drinks. There was a conch-salad-making demo. I called home and got to talk briefly while waiting for everyone to get to the bus.

We saw a demo of palm weaving and filled out an evaluation of the tour. We enjoyed the tour except it was too long and the DVD that played constantly in the bus was irritating. We got back to the beach just barely in time to tender back to the ship.

Evening was spent packing, napping, dinner in Cafe Carib, and last-night comedy show with both Jim McDonald and Jeff Peterson. We watched "Hancock" outside on Deck 15 and bought a T-shirt in the atrium.

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