The view from our room on a bright day at the resort.
Note: This blog post is third of four about a visit to Grand Bahamas Island in January 2016.
We tried our hand at snorkeling just to see if we would like it. We had some mixed reviews. We brought our own snorkel equipment so we didn’t need to rent any or worry about cleanliness. The downside was that Corey’s flipper wouldn’t stay latched on his foot. It was much more difficult that I remembered it being. We spent a lot of time fixing our equipment and not much time getting anywhere. I’m glad we decided to try it out at the resort instead of heading to another beach. After about two hours we were spent. We managed to find one rock with lots of fishies around it. We attempted to swim out to the coral reef 100 yards or so offshore, but it was high tide, so that distance wasn’t very easy to reach. The wind roughed up the water further from the beach, too.
Plenty to see snorkeling at the resort.
After lunch we drove west, stopping at the Lucaya Marketplace first. It was a mad house. All of the vendors seemed to be selling practically the same exact items and they were adamant about getting you to stop in their little shop. We stopped in one and they wouldn’t stop talking, trying to pressure us into buying something. I know we’re two really nice people who hardly ever say “no,” but somehow we managed to walk out of there empty-handed. We skirted the rest of the shops and walked toward the main drag to get an idea of what else there was. They had some American shops (Harley Davidson) and some higher-end shops selling fancy jewelry and clothing. Nothing was tripping our fancy. I really wanted some sort of jewelry, but struck out. We took some pictures and got on the road again.
We drove through Freeport, which was a challenge mainly because of the poor driving habits of the locals. They knew where they were going and just went there, nevermind stop signs and traffic signals. Driving on the wrong side of the road was challenge enough in roundabouts, but add the locals cutting corners and cutting in… it was insane.
Scenes from the west side of Grand Bahama Island.
After driving clear to the far west side of the island, Corey and I decided to never recommend traveling to that part. We had people asking us for a ride, walking in the middle of the road and watching our every move. We were maybe the only tourists (Corey told me I shouldn’t say “white people” but that’s how it really was, we were the only white people) driving at the time… so we stood out. That side of the island also featured many, many, many more stray dogs. They seemed to be everywhere. Most of the businesses and some of the homes had bars on their windows, too. It really wasn’t a pleasant place to be. It got a little nicer closer to the end of the island, but not by much.
We pulled off the road at the shore near the far west end and got out to walk around before driving back through the chaos. We took some pictures and it took us a few minutes to realize that the rocky shore wasn’t really made of rocks. It was a dumping ground for old conch shells. They were everywhere, some covered in plant life, some still pink and shiny. Corey found a smaller one that looked nice and would travel better than the one he found the previous day at Pelican Point. I already had a conch from my previous visit to the island. As we drove back toward Freeport, we noticed more piles of conch shells, something we were oblivious to before that stop.
We ended the night with a struggle to find the Pier One restaurant. It was in the harbor, but without the Internet, we had to rely on some pretty crappy directions to get us there. We arrived just after sunset and it was absolutely beautiful. Huge ships went by frequently. We had a nice supper and were able to see the 7 p.m. shark feeding. The lighting wasn’t great for photos and the sharks were moving pretty quickly. They threw the fish parts over the balcony to the sharks swimming below. It was neat to see so many sharks in one spot out in the wild doing laps. The food and drinks were absolutely amazing. We highly recommend Mango Crab and Bahama Mamma rolls and the Shark Snap! drink.