My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
We had a couple of meetings to prepare for Wet Dock before we went there. In one of them, my favorite Hotel General Manager, Peter (the big boss of the whole hotel department) said, We’re going to Grand Bahama Island, but don’t be fooled by the name. There isn’t a lot that’s Grand about it. Or something like that. In spite of what we had to work with, our HR representative worked really hard to put together a variety of crew tours and activities on various days of the week for those of us who could get away.
The first tour that was available when I wasn’t scheduled for key running (card walking) was to swim with the pigs. It was a big thing on this island. The whole thing sounded creepy to me. I mean, I did swim with the dolphins (posed for pictures with the dolphins) which I know is controversial even though I was assured that the dolphins were being treated well and there was some reason it was okay that they weren’t in the wild and were being used for tourism instead. But I didn’t feel right about the pigs. I haven’t known pigs to actually be swimmers, and I was pretty sure they were being lured into the ocean for tourism purposes rather than because it was something they wanted to do. Other people went and said it was cool and the pigs were really cute. And they lured them into the water with snacks so they weren’t being tortured. And there was a lot of poop in the water. I was still glad I’d passed on it.
Beach Extravaganza
On Easter Sunday there was a crew tour that went to a beach with a blow up obstacle course in the water, there was kayaking, paddle boarding, lunch and optional zip lining (for an extra fee of course). Now that sounded AWESOME. Molly and Jodie were on card walking duty, but Andi and Mike signed up for the tour as well.
We got to the beach, got our drink tickets and our food tickets. We were starving (we’d all slept through breakfast) so we waited to get food, which was pretty good. Then we went to try to play on the big inflatable obstacle course. That was a bust. We could barely get on, and then when we tried to get to each thing, immediately fell off. I lost interest pretty quickly. There weren’t any paddle boards available (that was something I’d wanted to do because I hadn’t done it before), but I did get ahold of a kayak. I started kayaking out into the ocean. I wasn’t having as much fun as I did kayaking in St. Maarten and St. Thomas. Exploring by kayak was amazing. Paddling out into the ocean by myself in choppy water knowing as far out as I went I would have to go back was less fun. I went back and joined the guys on a porch. We went to the bar and got Bahamian versions of a Long Island Iced tea and chatted with the driver about what it was like to grow up on Grand Bahama. That was more interesting. All I remember about his story is that he traveled a lot.
Bonfire
The first tour in actuality was disappointing compared to what I anticipated based on how it was described. Anyway, I was really excited about the Bonfire night! One of my favorite ways I’ve celebrated bringing in the new year was 2005 to 2006. I had left my beloved New York City and was moving to Colorado to start school in the spring semester. I flew to Durango to celebrate New Years with my friends before we all moved up to Greeley to go to school. My friend had a friend who had a job managing property and had saved up a bunch of piles of stuff that he needed to burn for New Years Eve. We drove to this place in the middle of no where without really having roads. I only knew my friend. They lit a bunch of bonfires and we drank champagne. It started snowing. People would run between the bonfires if they could stand the heat. I loved the contrast of moving back and forth between the freezing snow and the sweltering heat. It was so magical that I can’t believe I wasn’t high.
I mean, why wouldn’t a bonfire on a beach be that cool? We all got on the bus and after a while we arrived at the same beach that we’d been to before. We got the same food in Styrofoam containers, and then bought expensive drinks at the bar waiting for the sun to set. They lit a bonfire. It started to rain. Everyone ran back to the bar. The music was loud. Everyone was getting drunk. I was getting bored, but I tried to have fun. I made my rounds and tried to hang out with the people I found most interesting. But I was glad when the bus came and it was time to go.
Beach and National Park
I’d started to notice a pattern here. Most of these tours sounded really fun, but the stories I made up in my head about what they would be like were way more fun than how they actually turned out, so I opted out of the catamaran tour with the waterslide on board (I actually saw the boat and it was so much lamer than the way it sounded in the description. I think that tour was actually cancelled due to lack of sign ups), and I lowered my expectations WAY DOWN for these tours.
The last one I signed up for was something like a nature hike in a national forest (I’d learned in the Caribbean that a hike is usually closer to a comfortable walk on dirt rather than cement), caves and two beaches. Caves! Again I stopped and just imagined a little nook in the rock.
We got on the bus and our driver was the same guy that we hung out with on the beach who did all of the traveling. He told us some cool things about the island as we drove.
We arrived at the national park. As we walked through the labeled bushes, we would step aside as a line of kids would be passing in the opposite direction.
We came to our first cave.
We climbed down the stairs and took pictures. It was pretty.
Then we walked to through the bushes to the second cave.
It was so hot and humid down in the cave. I always think of caves as being cool, but this one was too open to the humid air. This cave was part of a system that let out somewhere cool.
The first beach was right across the street. We walked through the mangroves to get there.
The thing that makes this beach famous is this is the beach where they took the picture for the Microsoft generic beach picture in the stock photos for wall paper.
There was a lot of seaweed, but that didn’t stop me from taking off my shoes so I could walk in the water. Everyone decided to take a group picture with 6 cameras (mine wasn’t one of them), and by then, some other people had joined me ankle deep in the water. But now it was time to go to the other beach.
The next beach had a restaurant and we were starving. These fish were in a tank at the restaurant.
We had some great food and the setting looked like paradise. I went out and swam in the water for about 20 minutes before it was time to go. It would have been nice if we could have stayed longer at that second beach, but some people had to get back to the ship.
On the way back, the bus driver took us through town and told us some cool things about the government that I remember repeating later, but I can’t remember right now. I think the city where we were was founded by Americans and wasn’t a part of the island laws. So it followed it’s own rules.
So it turns out the secret to having a great tour in Grand Bahama is to expect it to be really bad. Then I had a great time. Having gone out exploring in Grand Bahama, I’m not sure why people would want to go on vacation there, but there’s a chance I missed something. It could be a great place to go to a resort. I’ll probably never find out, though.