Arrival on the Island

My parents decided to travel a day ahead and spend the night in Nassau before departing for Long Island on Saturday morning. We will stay over an extra night in Nassau on the return trip. With that said, we are starting the first leg of our trip alone. Our flight leaves IAH at 5:45 am so we are up and at em at 1:00 am to pack the truck and begin our 90 minute travel to the 'Parking Spot' at IAH in Houston. We arrive at the airport at 2:30 am, which to my suprise was a good deal, since the lines were short and moved quickly. By 3:00 am we are seated at our gate and eating breakfast, airport style.


Flawlessly, our flight is announced and boarded at 5 am. We arrive in Charlote, North Carolina for our connecting flight at 9:35 and  board our connection at 10:00 am. Upon arrival at Nassau, we make our way to baggage claim. By 12:30 we are sitting in the domestic flights lounge with my parents awaiting our 2:30 flight to Long Island, Bahamas. The flight to Long Island is interesting, as we are crammed on a very small plane holding (and at full capacity) with about 20 passengers.

As soon as we arrive at the Long Island airport (more of an open air waiting room) we are greeted by Noel, our caretaker and transportation coordinator for the week.  We load up in his small truck and he takes us to Cartwright's Grocery store. Really, more of a convinience store in size, they had everything we needed. We have made trips like this before though, so we planned ahead and brought frozen meat and packaged sides in our checked luggage on the flight over. All we really needed at the store on the island was sodas, milk, eggs, bread, butter, and a toothbrush for Micheal since he had forgotten to pack his. The prices on most things were actually a lot more reasonable than we have encountered before. Sodas were high, at about $17 per case, but bread was about $2.50 per loaf.

After loading up at the store, Noel took us about a mile down the road to a boat dock. We unloaded our luggage and groceries while Noel drove back up to his house (very close) and returned in his boat.  While waiting three local boys came down tot he dock and shared a little insight on catching 'crawfish' (lobster) before diving off into the water to take off on their homemade raft into the magrove forest.

A short boat trip later, we arrived at Little Deadman's Cay where Noel went through details for how to work the water pump, how to read the voltage for the batteries, and other information on making our stay on the Cay more efficient. The stove and refigerator are run on propane, so even if we were to use all of our electricity we could still cook and have cold food... good to know :) The house is kind of what we expected... cozy but not extravigant. Outside are many buckets and other containers for catching rain water and there are signs of artwork everywhere. The island used to serve as a swimming camp for local children and possibly an art camp, based on the various paintings around the house and yard (coconuts painted and paper mached to look like fish, cute little paintings of the coconut trees, etc). The house is comfortable and not in  any way un-livable, but it could use a little updating and a thorough cleaning. We did find plenty of cooking utensils, plenty of towels, sheets, blankets, etc. As well as a massive supply of candles, batteries, sunscreen, toiletries, bandaids, and other daily needs. There is an unspoken tradition that when you leave, anything you don't want to take back... just leave it for the next visitors.

A side view of the front of the house

Another view of the front of the house, note the two large water tanks for collecting rain water

The dining area from the living room - looks out onto patio

Living area

Small, but functional Kitchen

"Green" Bedroom with Queen size bed

"Blue" Bedroom with two twin beds

"Tan" Bedroom with Queen bed

When asking Noel what would be the best bait to use in our fishing, he mentioned that after a good rain (which the island had today before we arrived) the land crabs are very active. Boy, were we in for a suprise when they came out!