We had heard that a local bar/restaurant in Rock Sound called Four Points hosts a tour from the Princess Cruise Line.  The cruise line owns part of an island in Eleuthera which they call Princess Cay, where the passengers come ashore for a day.  As with all cruise ships, they offer shore tours.  The stop here included a buffet lunch of typical Bahamian food, a demonstration of how to clean conch and make conch salad, and a short Junkanoo followed by line dancing with the Junkanoo locals and the people from the tour.  In the photo above, the Princess Cruise people are enjoying their lunch and some are watching the demonstration.  In the photo to the left Edmund shows the conch meat after he extracted it from the shell.

Yesterday we met DaVon, the chef at the restaurant, and he told us what time to come back today.  We got there early and talked for about 45 minutes with Stephanie, the conch demo lady. She is the woman in the pink shirt at the table.  She was very interesting and told us a lot of local stories.  She lives on the top of a hill with her “Conchy Joe” husband.  We had heard this term before and asked her to explain it.  This is what they call a white Bahamian who, no matter how long they stay in the sun (according to Stephanie) they are still the color of a conch when they lose their tan.  When I mentioned the big black snake we saw in the cave yesterday, she started to tell us stories of snakes in her house and her son’s friend Edmund also told us snake stories.  This is odd, as we never heard of or saw any snakes all the time we were in The Exumas.  We are always told there are no poisonous snakes here.  Who cares?  They are still SNAKES.  I even stepped on a small dead snake on the road so I’m on the lookout now.

We had planned to go back to the boat to get our bikes, but instead decided to walk around Rock Sound.  There is a different flavor to this settlement.  The houses are painted bright colors and they have mowed yards.  Many yards are beautifully landscaped with large blooming plants.  In Exuma, grass lawns were not common and there weren’t many flowering plants.  While Eleuthera is very close to the Exumas, it seems more tropical.  The people here are friendly, as are all the Bahamians we have met.  There are a lot of roads - good for bike riding - and most are lightly traveled.  The main road is relatively busy with narrow shoulders, but the drivers warn you with a friendly honk that they are approaching and they move to the other side of the road as they pass.  In Georgetown, you take your life in your hands if you step into the street, as one unfortunate cruiser found out when she was hit by a car while crossing the street in front of Exuma Market.

We walked up and down a number of streets and on one we saw two ladies in the side yard putting something in bottles.  We asked if we could come and watch, and of course they welcomed us into their yard.  They were canning tomatoes in, of all things, Kalik bottles.  This is the local Bahamian beer.  They had saved the bottle caps and had a small machine to put them tightly back on.  One lady was using a plastic funnel and the other was using a large leaf as a funnel to get the tomatoes into the bottles.  After they were finished, they put them into a large barrel to somehow preserve or possibly boil them.  I didn’t quite catch the whole procedure but they told us the tomatoes last “forever” like this, although the two sisters share them with their large family of six siblings and lots of children so they probably don’t need the forever part.

On another street we came upon three young boys shooting their balls into a basket....a real basket nailed to a telephone pole.  They loved getting their pictures taken so JoAnne and I took a lot of them in various poses.  The boys delighted in seeing their photos on the screens of our digital cameras.  It occurred to me as we talked with them that every child we have met in the Bahamas has been extraordinarily friendly and well behaved.   Every child (and adult) we meet has a friendly smile, and greets us.  The people in the cars that pass us always wave.

Also in the photo at the right is one of the many garbage barrels located throughout Rock Sound on about every block.  It appears that people in the neighborhoods bring their garbage to these barrels and they are picked up by a regular garbage truck.  Cruisers are also allowed to leave their trash in the barrels, free of charge.  This is a clean town, perhaps because of a sign we saw that threatened a $500 fine and jail time for littering.

Speaking of jail time, when we were talking with the chef at the restaurant we asked him if Bahamians are still not allowed to gamble in the casinos.  He said this is a law, but that there are many “underground” casinos for the locals.  He mentioned that they are raided by the local police from time to time and the gamblers are put in jail for a night or two.

We feel very safe in the Bahamas.  While there is no doubt crime here, the laws are tough and the jails are ugly. When we told DaVon that we were impressed with his entrepreneurship as a chef, he said that he was the only one of his friends (he is about 30) who has a regular job.  The rest, he said, pick up odd jobs to get enough money to live on for awhile and then quit.  Another man in his 30’s named Thomas owns a good part of this town, including the Market area with the grocery store, the Four Points Restaurant, and other property. 

On our walk around Rock Sound, we talked with many of the local residents and we have the feeling they are very anxious to attract more tourists but aren’t quite sure what to do.  When we mentioned to Thomas, the young owner of the grocery store, that cruisers would love it if he built a dinghy dock and path up to his store, he thought that was a great idea and I suspect he will do it.  He was responsible for cleaning up the area around the blue hole and cave we visited yesterday, including building a wooden ladder to climb into them. 

The wind is supposed to pick up during the week, with gusts up to 30 kts.  Since we like this area we’ll probably stay until this front passes. We noticed some no-see-ums (very tiny flying bugs) the first night we were here when it was very still.  With the rising winds, the bugs are gone.

On a side note, it was a rather sad day for me.   My two children, Peter and Jennifer, were in the Bahamas today at Castaway Cay, the private Disney Cruise Line island.  It is near Great Abaco Island, not too far from here.  They are just beginning a month long cruise with their father and grandmother across the Atlantic and then on to the Mediterranean.  The transatlantic part takes 14 days with five ports of call in Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar.   The 11 day Mediterranean cruise has seven ports of call in Spain, Malta, Tunisia, Italy, Corsica and France. It was difficult to be so close to Peter and Jennifer and not be able to see them.  I did get an e-mail today from my son Peter with the subject line “Hi Baby.”  Somehow I knew it wasn’t meant for me, and of course it wasn’t.  He has a girlfriend in California, where he works as a geologist.  Anyway, his mistake was my pleasure as he told her about his fun day of snorkeling in the lagoon which is probably stocked with fish and has a net keeps the “larger ones” out.  He mentioned he saw a grouper hiding in a shipwreck beyond the net that was bigger than him with “large pointy teeth.”  There are three beaches for people from the cruise ships to visit:  one for adults (called Serenity Bay), one for families and one for teens.   They also have a beach for the ship’s crew and onshore “cast members.” I have been to Castaway Cay on a Disney Cruise and collected beautiful shells on the beaches. I’ve never seen shells like that anywhere else in the Bahamas.  I suspect the workers spread them out before the cruise ships arrive.  It is Disney after all.