The little plane that took us from Miami to Great Exuma.
We sat right next to the propellers to make sure they stayed on the plane.
What Ed did on the way there. (He was snoring)
What Seulgey did. (She was dreaming that Ed would stop snoring)
This is Bimini (but the natives be friendly).
The Exuma Cays...we're almost there!
Great Exuma!
Arrival!
The entrance to our hotel - Four Seasons Great Exuma.
We stayed in Bay House Room 4104.
The view from our patio at sunrise.
The food that greeted us upon arrival. The marmadukes in the left corner were delicious!
They had a cool palm frond fan on the ceiling.
Because of a hurricane the week before, there was flooding all over the island... and they just happened to be pumping all the flood water out into the ocean, right next to the hotel-- making all the water at that beach brown and stinky.
This is us lounging in front of the closed ocean. The beach was still nice.
We decided to swim in the nice clean hotel pools.
This is Seulgey's tongue.
This is Ed's tongue.
Ed pretending he's a velociraptor.
Ed playing tennis.
This is before we discovered playing tennis at the hotel was $30 an hour.
Food at the hotel was too expensive so we bought cereal and soy milk to save money. Unfortunately, when we were checking out, we learned that our travel agent had enrolled us in the "Bed and Breakfast" package, which meant we had complimentary room service breakfast every morning!
In the back of a truck, heading towards our snorkeling expedition.
Our snorkeling boat!
Our snorkeling water!
Snorkeling!
Snorkeling looks cool.
Seulgey is amazed to see the brain-sucking starfish on Ed's head.
He's starving now.
Ed was sad to leave the ocean.
This area is apparently called the "Fish Fry", where the locals go to eat and drink. We ate steamed grouper and battled flies.
This is the table where we battled flies, before the food came out. We had to go back inside :p
Ed made Seulgey walk from the Fish Fry to Georgetown, the only town in Exuma.
Crime is a major problem here.
We went bonefishing-- bone fish are the number one shallow water game fish in the Caribbean, and Great Exuma is apparently a great place to catch them. The guide at the Barraterre lodge is supposed to be the best on the island. (We didn't catch any bone fish)
Into the blue sea!
To make bait for bonefish, go to a shallow reedy part of the ocean where lots of conch live. Then use a 10-foot long stick with a hook on the end to pull them out of the water. Then crack open the shell with the handle of a rusty knife, and pull out the slimy conch-flesh through the top.
Knock knock!
These little fishies apparently clean slime off the conch... they fell out of one of the conch when the guide pulled it on board. (We threw them back)
Seulgey, with snapper #1 of 10!
Ed, with one of the many throw-back fish he caught that day! (#1 of 6)
[Blacktip shark-- not to be confused with the Blacktip Reef Shark (which lives in tropical waters all around the world, but NOT the Caribbean).] This is the one that got away. Ed hooked a shark near the end of the trip, but after a valiant battle, the 80 pounder escaped, and took most of Ed's fishing line with it. Unfortunately, Seulgey was too slow with her camera so no one will believe this story.
The Coco Plum beach! Since the hotel beach was closed, there were some other Four Seasons guests at this place. (Only 10 minutes and a $35 taxi ride away!)
Mmm... lobster salad and Coco Plum Burger! Once again we were attacked by flies... this time instead of moving us inside, they told us to take the beach chairs and sit next to the ocean, and that the flies would go away. It sorta worked?
Seulgey's feet are wrinkled from eating lunch with our feet in the surf.
Making Dorodango at night!What is a Dorodango? http://www.kyokyo-u.ac.jp/youkyou/4/english4.htm
Our two beautiful dorodango-in-progress!
Ed is sad his dorodango-in-progress broke.
We rented a little catamaran sailboat the day before we left. The nice people at the rental place gave us a mini-sailing lesson, and off we went!
Captain Seulgey womanning the helm.
A deserted beach on another island, with nobody around for miles and miles!
The lunch the hotel packed for us!
No flies, but there were hermit crabs!
Clearer than a swimming pool!
Waiting for sunrise on the last day.
Here comes the sun!
Cracked conch- our last meal on the island, at the island's only real non-hotel restaurant, Castaway. All that fried conch meat apparently comes from just one animal!
