non tourist tour

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Zoe and Maggie arrived slightly earlier than expected on Christmas night. The flight they had been booked on from Nassau to Freeport only had them as passengers, so they were bumped to an earlier more expensive flight and thus arrived at the Grand Bahama Yacht Club a bit early. We took the shuttle boat to Lucaya and viewed all the touristy area...I returned a dress that did not fit.
Today ( Monday Dec.,28) we were treated to a wonderful tour of the island. This was a special treat since it took us to the places that tourists do not generally see.
Sadly, there were lots of hurricane damaged areas with many homes sitting empty, boarded up and very forlorn looking. Tyrone ( our guide) explained how high the water had been from the storm surge. Even in the city of the Freeport there were high rise buildings and casinos so damaged they have been emptied and abandoned.
We visiting a local bakery at Pinders Point...the smells were wonderful! I wanted to move into the bakery. We walked through the owners livings room to room with the baked goods.
We visited several settlements, each with a different flavour. One settlement with very small houses we were told was largely a Haitian community, another was a fishing village.
We saw people fishing, they had caught moray eels and a small shark along with a multitude of regular fish.
At the West End fishing community we watched a fellow clean the conch ( pronounced like conck), and ate the "piston". That is a local delicacy, salty tasting and considered a cure for sore backs and an aphrodisiac!
We also had fresh conch salad, ( the same conch the fellow had just cleaned) lovely stuff!
We had been hearing about chicken in a bag... so our next stop was Jones Town for this treat. A tiny little shop with snack available on its sign., wonderful food it was too.
You are allowed to drink beer in the car! We stopped at a local bar and grill in West End to purchase a couple of beer to go with the spicy conch salad. The kind owner hugged us all and served us free of charge some conch fritters. Zoe,Maggie and I drank the beer in the car, just because we could.
One of the highlights was visiting a shop where people were making their costumes for Junkanoo. These elaborate costumes are based from cardboard and fashioned and decorated. They are quite astonishing.
This was a terrific day topped off with two for one drinks and free appetizers at the marina pool bar.
We plan to leave Tuesday to make our way to the Berry Islands . We may not be able to post for a little while. HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! Take care everyone

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Photos

tyrone
tyrone east pistol

small shark
very small shark

tour
beer in the car