Saturday, December 21, 2024
I flew with my mother and father from Omaha to Charlotte and then from Charlotte to Miami. In the Miami airport, we met Mike and we flew to Exuma. When we arrived, we stepped off the plane and walked to a very small building housing immigration and customs. Before we could enter the building, we heard Catherine and Eric yelling at us from the road on the other side of the fence. They had already landed and acquired our two rental vans. We showed our passports, collected our luggages, and affirmed we did not bring any alcohol or weapons with us. We stepped out of this very small building and Catherine and Eric handed us the keys to the second van. We had some time to kill. We could not check into vacation rental for a couple of hours, so we had planned to get lunch. Catherine looked up a restaurant on Google, but when we arrived, they were closed (seemingly permanently). We looked up another restaurant. When we arrived, it looked like a very sketchy bar. We decided on a third restaurant, which looked very nice when we arrived, so we ate at Augusta Bay. I had a burger, and it was great. Everyone's food looked great. We enjoyed our first meal on the island with a perfect view of the ocean. After lunch, we continued on the Queen's Highway to the Exuma Market. I should give some explanation about Exuma. There is really only one road on the entire island, the Queen's Highway. There are no traffic lights at all on the island, and the only stop sign on the Queen's Highway is the turn off into Georgetown, which is a oneway street that loops back onto the Queen's Highway. So we took the small loop into Georgetown to stop at Exuma Market. We had made an online order before leaving the states. After picking up most of our order (a number of items were out of stock or could only be partially filled), we continued on the Queen's Highway to our vacation rental. Here is some more explanation of Exuma -- there are two main islands. The main island is Great Exuma. Great Exuma, however, is connected by a one lane bridge to a smaller island, Little Exuma. Our vacation rental was on Little Exuma. The entire trip from the airport to our vacation rental is 45 minutes. The Queen's Highway runs the length of both of these narrow islands, and the highway ranges from one to two lanes throughout its entire length, and it is riddled with serious potholes anywhere past Georgetown. The speed limit is 30 miles per hour on the entire "highway" to account for the numerous curves, the endless potholes, and the fact that the road is not typically a full two lanes. You also drive on the left in the Bahamas. But after the harrowing first drive on to our vacation rental, The Exuma Outpost, we arrived at an amazing house on an amazing beach. The houses boasts five rooms that each have its own private bathroom. It has a large great room with a two story ceiling, a large kitchen, and a loft above the kitchen with two more twin beds. The house comfortable fits 12, so it was perfect for our large family. The house has a pool right in front of the main entrance, and then directly in the back is a lania with seating for 8 plus two hammocks overlooking its basically private beach. There are four vacation homes on this basically private beach. After dropping off the groceries and taking a quick peak at the home and beach, Mike and I took the vans back to the airport to pick up the last members of our party to arrive, the Wates family.
Sunday, December 22, 2024
It was an early morning. We booked a private half day boat tour with Exuma Water Sports. With our large group, the cost was basically the same between the public tour and the private tour, so the decision was obvious. They offer two choices of tours. If you have heard of Exuma before, you may be familiar with one of its big attractions -- swimming with pigs. So one of their tours takes you to the beach where the pigs swim, but we chose the second option -- their seven beaches tour. We easily made the correct choice. The first stop was an amazing sandbar near Rolletown where we got off and walked in the middle of the ocean and took pictures. Then we stopped at a beach at the end of Great Exuma where the tide created a natural lazy river between the two islands, so we took noodle floats and floated around the beach. The third stop was the nicest beach in all of Exuma. My family would argue our beach at the vacation rental was the nicest on the island, but they are dilusional. This beach at the Moriah Harbour Cay National Park was the best -- and we had it all to ourselves. The only way to visit this national park is by boat -- and our boat was a private tour, so we had the entire beach to ourselves. On the way to the fourth stop we stopped in the ocean when we spotted some dolphins passing by. The fourth stop was a spot for snorkling. I snorkled for a bit until I dropped my snorkel. Eric showed off his diving skills by retrieving my snorkel 15 feet down. The fifth stop was a spot for finding sand dollars, which the kids did, but at this point we had broken out the left over skewers that we brought along with the cooler of beverages provided by the Exuma Water Sports tour. If you visit Exuma, book the tour.
Monday, December 23, 2024
We spent day 3 at our beach. We went into town and picked up food from a food truck.
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
In the morning, we set out further down the Queen's Highway down to the Tropic of Cancer Beach. The road there was even worse than we had experienced so far, but we made it, and it's the longest beach in Exuma. In the afternoon, we headed into Georgetown to take a water taxi across to Stocking Island. At Stocking Island, we ate at the Chat n' Chill, before taking the taxi back to Georgetown.
Wednesday, December 25, 2024
On Christmas, we spent the day at our own beach, and in the evening, a chef came over and cooked us dinner at the vacation rental. The menu was pork loin, grouper, mashed sweet potatoes, salad, fruit, and bread pudding.
Thursday, December 26, 2024
We spent another day enjoying our beach.
Day After Christmas Beach Vibes
Friday, December 27, 2024
After enjoying the beach all day, we had reservations for a restaurant in Rolletown for our last night in Exuma. We ate at Blu. The food, the atmosphere, the live music, the dominatrix waitress -- all of it was amazing. It was the perfect end to our stay in the Bahamas.
Last Day of Vacation Beach Vibes
Saturday, December 28, 2024
We loaded up both vans and took our final trip on the Queen's Highway back to the airport. Our flight was for three hours, but we made it out to Charlotte, and then back to Omaha.
Overall, the trip was the perfect end to 2024. We have made three international trips in the past two years, but we are just getting started. We arrive in Japan on Sunday, August 17, 2025.
