Land Mermaids and Cruising the Islands

After three days of travelling and sleeping on airport floors we finally made it to Observation, a rather large, beautiful sailing yacht. We spent the first half the day sleeping, only waking up in time for dinner and half of School Of Rock.

 

Today however has been amazing. We both woke up nice and early (6.30ish) due to our 14 hour sleep the day before (but it's ok waking up early on a yacht). Breakfast was typically American, Cheerios and raspberry iced poptarts.

We then got ferried into the bustling city of Marsh Harbour, well we wouldn't quite call it that, more a clam town. Although calm, it was not uneventful.

Our first experience with the locals:

We were happily walking down the street to Maxwells, the local supermarket, (which I do have to say we were both impressed by the vast variety of food, especially 7up cakes and cheese in a can) when a black Bahemian man was swaggering towards us and as he passed swiftly turned to join us on our voyage. We didn't really know what to think, and when he started talking the confusion grew with every word. Statements such as; 'When I saw you I thought I saw mermaids on land' and 'I can't breathe' follwed by 'I dont know what I just said,' he led us to assume he was rather drunk at 10.00...am. We continued walking in silence, unsure what to do or say.

Our second experience with the locals:

We were rather nervously walking along the road being tailed by a mysterious sweet talker who was NOT making sense, when a car pulled over infront of us. Sorry Mum, as we are about to break the first rule you ever taught to us when entering the big wide world. We clambered into the safety of the car after the kind lady offered to save us from the big scary man. After our many thanks, she stated that she thought we needed saving as she could see us slowly inching our way into the middle of the road away from the scary man. She safely dropped us off at Maxwells and wished us luck on our walk home.

Our third experience with the locals:

We were both completely in awe of the various workers of Maxwells, all of which were tall dark and handsome (well not quite but you get the picture.) While doing the typical tourist thing of taking a photo of eachother in the isle with a thousand different types of juice, one of the men noticed our camera and pointed out that we shouldn't take photos of strangers. We smiled laughed at his not so-funny-jokes and walked on. However that was not the end, as true to new found tradition the man followed us to the end of the isle and struck up conversation casually asking when we think we will next be dropping in. As if we roam the supermarket to pick up.

So all in all the locals are very friendly, perhaps too friendly at times, but we will reserve our judgements till we have explored other roads, cars and supermarkets.

Back on the boat for a few seconds, Simon then took us to pick up some bikes for exploring the many Abacos Islands that we are soon to encounter.

We are set to set Sail

Anchors up and motor's running we make our way to the first of many snorkelling spots, Mermaid reef (quite appropriate, maybe the big scary black man was right), after much deliberation as the water was rather chillier than desired (we are just wimps as it was actually about 22 degrees C) we jumped in with the camera in one hand and a bag of cheerios in the other, we gently swam over to the reef. It was beautiful. The fish were amazing, so many different kinds in one small area, each seemingly with a very strong passion for the crunch of our favourite breakfast cerial.

After lunch, the sails went up and we are now anchored in Tahiti Beach surrounded by the most luxurious mansions and about to have fresh lobster for dinner (be jealous Mimi).

Off to see a lighthouse tomorrow and to put those bikes to use.

Bye for now.