My Vacation

We flew to Nassau on Friday and spent the night at my husband's sisters house.  She has a 1/2 a million dollar home and it is just gorgeous.  My son and I swam in the pool that night and then slept on the most comfortable bed.  We spent Saturday there again swam in the pool in the morning layed out in the sun and just basked in the fact that I had nothing to do.  Mind you it was hard to slow down at this time.  Going from a 100 miles an hour to chilling in the sun at the pool is like shell shocking!  That afternoon family started showing up.  Rickie has 4 brothers and sisters 2 sisters that live in Nassau.  They had a cook out for us and we all got to visit over wine and hamburgers :-).  It was a lovely relaxing evening except Caleb slipped down at the pool and really cutt his foot.  It was a bloody gorey mess.  Just joking but it was a pretty good cutt and you would think that his foot needed to be amputated based on Caleb's ruckous.  Sunday we had to head to the airport pretty much first thing as our flight left at 1 and checking in time was 11 and I get up pretty late and Rickie went out visiting that morning with some of his friends (he is an early morning person!) We flew to Long Island and arrived around 3 pm.  We ate a wonderful dinner and visited with his parents and met with Caleb's cousin Justin who is about 20ish I think.  Papa cutt a huge bunch of bananas (Caleb's favorite fruit) and we got some pictures of Caleb standing next to the Banana stalk.  To give you an idea of what a banana stalk is imagine a pole with 8-10 bunches of bananas like what you would find at a grocery store.  It was as tall as Caleb is.  The rest of the vacation was composed of the best weather you could find.  Sleeping in every morning till 11.  (Mama and Papa took Caleb in the kitchen and hung with him while I was able to sleep in)! Around 12ish we would find something to do whether it was flying a homemade kite made out of a sheet of paper and banana stalks and fishing line for the line, catching butterfly's, lizards, hermit crabs etc or visiting some friends.  We spent a wonderful chopping open coconuts drinking the milk and eating the meat and baking coconut tarts.  We ate fresh tomatoes from Papa's garden with fresh bananas, papaya's, pumpkins all from Papa's trees ond plants.  What delicious food we were given.  His mother should open a restaurant with her absolutely mouth watering cooking.  She is amazing.  I was also coerced into playing the piano on Sunday for Mama and Papa's church.  I didn't want to do this because I wanted to just sit and enjoy.  I already do it every Sunday, but I'm glad I did it.  It went very well.  Swimming and fishing and just bathing in the sun really consumed most of the vacation and gave us some of the best memories that will carry us until next year when we go again. Certain experiences stand out Sunday afternoon Rickie went out conching (diving conch) and I was left at home and so I decided to go fishing on my with my Mother in Law and Caleb.  She objected at first but I told her... You have been cooking for us day and night.  You are always at home and you live in paradise.  It is time for you to go out with us and have some fun.  She came after that.  Fishing is hard because they do not use a rod and reel and they do not use worms for bait.  So I had to learn quickly how to throw the line by swinging it in a circle and then throwing it out in the water.  Then you have to pull the fish in holding the fishing line... It can cutt your hand if you do it wrong.  The bait is fish fillet that is raw.  So you have to work hard to hook the mealy fish to the hook.  That was very hard.  I tried and tried from the dock and when it wouldn't work we decided to go swimming.  Well that was totally unsuccesful because a couple of nights before we had spent a couple of hours catching bunnysickers which are basically what we would term sea crabs.  Beautiful beautiful crabs that like to crawl under boats on the dock.  We caught a couple for bait to fish with and had some fun watching them swim, catching them, and then watching them run about on the dock.  So we returned to the dock area and where the boats are launched  I waded in to about my waist.  Mama waded in with me.  She hiked her skirt up and we were both out there. I have never seen her smile so much!  We had a blast.  Finally after 3 hours of trying I caught a fish!!!!!! About the size of my hand :-(  haha.  It was still fun and we got all kinds of pictures of my trophy fish.  A day later Papa came up to me and said ... "this is between you and me but I went out and bought some hooks, I'm gonna take mama fishing."  These two people I have known for 8 years and in that time I have never seen either of them outside of the house or church.  I was so excited because i felt like I had helped to bring them some joy and excitement for themselves. On this trip we went to a different beach every day except the one day it rained.  The beaches there are beautiful and you are always alone just you and your family on the beach because there are so many.  If you drive up to a beach and one person is on it you then drive to another.  So you are never disturbed.  Caleb just ran around buck naked whereever we were on the beach.  The last day we were there we absolutely packed the day full of everything.  On our way to Dean's Blue Hole (a famous blue hole that you can look up on the web) we found thousands of galden crabs running about on the road.  They were small about the size of your hand and just perfect for baiting the line for fishing.  We caught maybe 15 and I got great video of caleb chasing the crabs around and trying to pick them but then at the last minute getting scared and running the next way.  We swam there for about 4 hours (I burned to death!!!!) Then we went to visit his one sister that lives on the island and looked at there crabs they caught the night before. They had about 7-8 and they were about the size of 2 fists held together.  Pretty big and the kids were just enthralled with watching them move about. We ate sapadillies and just rested under a large tree.  We then drove home and went fishing one final time before we left Long Island. This final fishing trip was by far one of the most memorable and best experiences of the trip.  Rickie his dad and his mom all went.  It was amazing to watch his 72 year old dad and his 67 year old mother both tough as nails climb down this rocky, water chiseled, volcanic rock trail to the beach called Buckley's North Side.  Rickie and his Dad then climbed across razor sharp crinkle rock too dangerous for mama me and Caleb and started to fish using the yo yo lines.  They would throw the line out, start to pull the fish in and then you could see this long thick shadow swim up and strike.  Over and over again this 5 foot baracuda chopped every fish we caught off at the neck and all Papa and Rickie would bring in were the heads of the fish.  Well at that point it was on.  They pulled out the fishing line and the hook specially designed for catching barracuda and put the tail end of the one little fish they did bring into shore.  They threw this out in the sea and in no less than 5 minutes the baracuda struck.  But it let go just as soon and Rickie was so dissappointed. He argued with Papa for a few minutes about whose fault it was and how Rickie had pulled on the line to fast.  Rickie was discouraged and unsure he would get the Baracuda to strike again so I intervened and told him that this stupid thing has eaten every fish we have caught.  WE NEED TO GET HIM!  So he threw his line in again and again and again. 20 minutes passed and we all were wondering if he would catch the baracuda on the line again.  And he did.  The Baracuda struck and went easily a 100 yards with the line as Rickie let it run out for a few minutes as the Baracuda swallowed the bait.  Then he pulled and the Baracuda leapt out of the water straight into the air flashing about to get loose.  This battle continued all the way into land when Rickie pulled this easily 60 pound 5 foot long Baracuda onto the beach.  We were all hollering and cheering Rickie and you could see him beaming with pride over his conquest!  It was an amazing end to a wonderful, really the best family vacation we had ever been on!