Just one quick run to the beach to say goodbye and take a couple more pictures, because the sky looked pinkish blue during breakfast prep. We showered, packed and cleaned, taking the last of the food to “the neighbours” before Albert picked us up in his cab. 

He took us to Marsh Harbour to the Conch Inn and waited for us to drop our bags, then took us on to the ferry. We took the Albury ferry to Elbow Cay which cost $25 return per person. The ferry ride was about 30 minutes, but it seemed much shorter.  

Arriving in Hopetown, we had a number for golf cart rentals, but didn’t get any response. There was a young girl on the steps of a store, who had come over on the ferry with us. She made a few calls for us before opening her shop. She left a message with one person and gave us the number to try as well. We wandered around a bit and found the golf cart place and she had a cart ready for us. We asked her where to go and she said not to turn right at the tee, because there was nothing down that road…other than that, she wouldn’t tell us anything. She said we were there to explore and if she told us too much, that would take the fun out of it!

John drove this time and we headed out. First stop was at a beach that you had to walk down a long staircase to get to. Looking at the map it was hard to identify which beach it was, but I would guess South Beach. The waves were huge and Bill went out to his knees and said the undertow was significant. 

We continued on and found Tahiti Beach. The tide was fairly high, so the beach was small. We were able to walk out on the sandbar to the swings way out (John stayed on the beach with the passports!). As we were coming back, the sandbar was more and more exposed and they brought a barge in that has the bar (Thirsty Cuda), opened it up and started the music. 

We were looking at the sand to make sure we didn’t step on anything, and the bar being set up. When we got to the beach, a man standing there said, “Did you see the shark swimming across in front of you?” We said something like oh yeah and laughed to which he said something else and we said, “Oh, you’re serious!” He said it swam right across in front of us while we were in the water that was just over knee deep and it was about 20 feet in front of us! As much as I wanted to see a shark, it’s probably a good thing we didn’t see that one. He said it was about 5 feet long and they see them often there.  The day before he had seen a couple of small hammer heads.

We left there and went to “On Da Beach” for lunch. It was similar to Nippers in the kind of location, overlooking the ocean. We had drinks; virgin strawberry daquiri (I’ve learned this is a new favourite of mine!), Yellow Bird (Bill and Sarah) and John had Sex On The Beach! The meals we had were chicken and chicken kabobs, grilled fish sandwich and fish burger…all were very good and we loved the location. Wondering if we could have “On Da River” at home!

We left there and went back to explore Hopetown some more. We went in some little shops, bought some souvenirs for the kids (grands, that is) and explored the tiny flower lined streets, only wide enough for a golf cart. We quickly realized that behind the little town there was another amazing beach! And again, very few people! In fact, there was a church whose back door opened to the beach!

In one of the stores I asked the storekeeper, what is the secret about how to get to the lighthouse. On the ferry the worker had told us to go to a particular restaurant and have lunch, and they were take us over, the golf cart lady said to go to the marina and ask someone to take us over and offer them $5, but we didn’t hear that from her! So I thought it must be top secret! He said it isn’t a secret, and gave us the number to call. He said it is the Marina taxi and it will take us to the Marina but we will have to walk to the lighthouse from there.

We took the taxi and got to the Marina, but getting to the lighthouse wasn’t as easy as we expected. We asked a man who took us part way and then told us how to go from there. We had to walk up a hill, through a boatyard, around a couple of corners, down by the waterfront and then up the path to the lighthouse. The lighthouse had 101 steps to the top and we headed up; the last 21 were the scariest (they were steeper, metal instead of wood and narrower) – and yes I counted every one. At the top you could crawl out a little door to see the view all the way around. It took me a few minutes to get brave enough (the stairs were scary enough!) but the view prevailed. It really was so worth it and I had to take some pictures. What a beautiful view! Sights and sounds (roosters crowing in every direction) were amazing!

We went to wait on the dock for the ferry and then got panicky that it might not stop there…we had been told by the worker on the ferry that they would, and the storekeeper we had spoken to, but there was no one else there, so we made the walk back to the marina and got the water taxi again. The water taxi took us to the upper dock.  He said that was the first stop for the ferry.

We got back to Marsh Harbour on the ferry and got a cab to take us to the Conch Inn. The taxi driver had what I was guessing was her daughter and grandson with her. They got in the back seat. The little boy was in grade 3 and very sweet. He was quite interested in my camera, so I handed it back to him and allowed him to take a couple of pictures with it. He loved looking at what he had taken. We we got to the Inn I took his picture and showed him!

Check in at the Conch Inn was different than most places. The guy came with us to the room to show us how to use the code entries, then came back with coupons for a free drink at Snappas, the restaurant/bar right there ar the marina. 

John and I went to the pool and hottub.  The pool was very tiny and just as cold, so I opted for the hot tub pretty quickly. The hot tub was an inflatable one…now John wants one!

Snappas was SLOW – we had our drinks, pizza and cheesecake – all was good, but just so slow. We ate outside, overlooking the marina, so that was special.

We rearranged luggage and headed to bed early after booking a cab for the morning drive to the airport.

 

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