Looking around the Lucayan Marketplace

Bagels and strawberry cream cheese, tangerines and coffee for breakfast, mmmmmm…. It was a delightfully lazy morning and with electricity, I definitely wanted bagels!
This is a very nice place. I’m so glad Blue Pearl recommended it.

After showers we ferried over to the market place with Azaya and wandered the shops and stores.

The market area is very colorful. The shops are painted various shades of purple, yellow, orange, blues and greens. 


Note Pat & Diane Fantasia Tours above :)

I found a couple of businesses labeled "Pat & Dianne" and thought about Diana back home. How about it Di - should we set up shop here?

The Christmas tree and New Years decorations with the dropping ball and beaded streamers that cross above us, attest to the huge party that must have been in the main square. The Santa figure, by the tree, looks like he may have partied a bit too much.

It was delightful looking in the shops. Hearing the ladies hawking “Come in, ma’am have a look around”, “come in beautiful, see what I have… what is it you’re looking for?” in their lilting voices, definitely made me realize that we’re no longer in Florida. There, the accents and language are predominantly Latin American, but in the Bahamas the voices have, what I would describe as, a lilting, sing song Creole flavor that is heard throughout the Bahamas.

We had lunch in one little restaurant near the straw market. At least I thought it was a small one. We sat outside at the patio tables that had a view of the straw market and I had my first cracked conch of the season! It was quite tasty! Add lemonade, peas and rice, fresh broccoli, peppers, carrots and zucchini spears, salad with Greek olives and feta cheese – at $10.79 it was a bargain with a terrific view for people watching. When we were done eating, I went inside and was amazed to see that the restaurant part was quite large and nice. I think the name of it might have been “Le Med”. It opened onto two streets, had a dessert counter, had table-clothed tables and was quite roomy and very clean. It was impressive and more upper-scale than the patio area indicated from the outside.

The decline in the world market and in the U.S. has hit the Bahamas hard. So many of the new hotels and marinas were literally stopped dead in their tracks. Walking along the beach, we decided to cut back to the main street through a very large hotel and grounds that appeared to be extensively groomed. Huge pools and an outdoor that was beautifully tailored to attract upper-end customers looked relatively deserted. We noticed there wasn’t anybody about and the pool area said, “Closed”. I was flabbergasted when we walked up to the main entrance to see a “Closed” sign on the door. This was a billion dollar operation sitting empty of employees, vacant of guests. It made me think of the marina we’re at. They’re offering wonderful deals but the marina has, mostly empty slips. I think if the economy were good – we couldn’t afford to stay here! While the economy may be on the up swing finally, it appears to be only slowly filtering to the outlaying areas. I think that they are just trying to stay open to get through this economy. If they can break even, it will be good. The people like Thomas, work long hard hours and fill the jobs of many. They’re good people that have had these jobs for many years. I hope things turn around here!

Going back to the ferry to get to the marina, we ran into Harry and Marayka from Aurora. We all decided to go over charts and weather back at the marina. It sounds like another cold front is expected to come through here Wednesday or Thursday and since we were going to leave then, it seemed we had better go over anchorages and weather.
Back at the marina it was happy hour time by the pool bar. They have a 2 for 1 drink special between 4pm and 7pm so Azaya brought their computer so we could go over weather, and we all brought our charts. The pool/bar area is so beautiful! It has a long lap pool (that I’m sure my camera doesn’t do justice) that goes under a bridge to a kiddy pool and fountain and ends at a waterfall. The bar and patio area sit on a bricked area that hold wrought iron tables and chairs. The bar is quite different. It has the shape of a boat’s bow with a figurehead at the point of the bow and a mural behind it of ocean creatures.

We went over several different weather sites and looked at the anchorages and sheltered areas. I think all 3 boats decided that we’d rather be here than at an anchorage if given the choice. The predicted 25-30 knot winds in the middle of the night would be more comfortable here. How much of that was based on the weather and charts I’m not sure. The drinks, I’d forgotten, are mostly gin with a splash of tonic. Even though I’d ordered mine mostly tonic with a splash of gin, I think I still got the Bahamian special of mostly gin! I’m not sure how I got back but I know I had a great evening and laughed a lot at our palaver (captain’s meeting in Dutch – Aurora is from Holland).

Poor Wayne. I couldn’t have made dinner if I’d tried! His dinner consisted of what ever he could find that was easy. Cheese & crackers and M&Ms. Good thing we had a large, late lunch.