We have arrived

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Well it took a long time to get here but we're in the Bahamas now. The plan was to fly from San Fran to Charlotte NC, arrive about 9pm and spend the night there, then leave again in the am for Nassau. However, there were thunderstorms in Charlotte, so after a lot of circling we got diverted to Greensboro to refuel and didn't get to our hotel in Charlotte until almost 2am. We crashed and got up a few hours later. On to the flight and we arrived about noon today.

Today and tomorrow were the planned shopping days in Nassau before we go on to the out islands. Three quarters of the people in the Bahamas live in Nassau - our next biggest city stop is going to be Governor's Bay on Eluthera - about 1500 people comprise the largest city on that 100 mile long island which is sometimes only a few hundred feet wide separating the blue Atlantic with all its big waves (in some spots) from the Carribean which is shallow and lake-like (or so we're told).

Anyway, once here we had to have conch fritters for lunch - very famous dish turns out to be basically a fried dough ball with some conch flavoring. Then it was off to do shopping.

Three large cruise ships were here - we could see them from the hotel beach, and the streets were crowded. We found a smashed together market reminiscent of Mexico and talked for a while with the stand owner until he yelled when some unidentified creature tried to eat his lunch "we have hamsters around here" he explained. Anyway, we bought a couple of wide brimmed hats which we will definitely use and Kelly got a Hawaiian shirt too. Went back to the hotel to take a dip at the beach and heard the cruise ships tooting.

By the time we returned to shopping the streets were deserted and the shops were mostly closed. The cruise ships had left town. They close when the ships go or at 5pm on Sunday (today). Tomorrow we had high hopes for more shopping until we learned tomorrow is Whit Sunday (an English holiday) and most everything might be closed (except that a Disney ship is due to arrive). We'll see.

My hat is very special - made from seisel straw that they have to scrape off something wash and dry. Kelly got a cowboy hat - looks very cute.

An early night tonight as we're both pretty sleep deprived. More tomorrow - and promise at attach some pics.

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