I think we found the most laid back place in the world — Long Island Bahamas. If you are into snorkeling, fishing, laying on the beach, and feeling swift breezes flowing through screened windows of a beach side cottage — you will love it here. If you are looking for WiFi, Cable TV, tours and planned out days — you are in the wrong place.
For a slide show of Long Island, click here.
Let’s start with the cottage. We stayed in a one bedroom cottage with 2 decks that sits ocean front. The windows have 6 inch layers of rotating glass that open all the way up so that breezes come through the house as if you were camping under the open sky. Delightful sleeping at night, feeling the breezes and hearing the ocean crash onto the rocks outside of the cabin.
Our cabin on the ocean
Wind swept bedroom
Great views
Whistling Duck Cottage
View from the front deck
We had no internet and no cable TV — just DVDs of older movies which made every night “Movie Night”. There are not many restaurants here either, only a few. We ended up eating at 2 different restaurants almost every day, but that also gave us a chance to connect to WiFi to catch up on current events (like the election results). Our favorite restaurant was next to a marina where we could see large boats as well as the small fishing boats come in for a break.
The marina
Our favorite eatery
Lynn enjoying lunch
One day we were hanging out at that restaurant and we saw a fishing boat pull up with a huge catch of lobster. They harvest lobsters the old fashion way — they dive down and hook or spear them!
We met some other vacationers from Vancouver, Canada that happened to be staying in a cabin next to us. Together, we went down and asked the fishermen if they would sell us some lobster — we bought 8 lobsters for $35! That night we grilled shared lobster with our new friends at their cottage.
Lobster fishermen
Catch of the day!
The ocean and beaches are spectacular here, check out these beaches we stumbled on.
Incredible beaches
Incredible beaches
Incredible beaches
Incredible beaches
Incredible beaches
One of the big attractions is Dean’s Blue Hole. It is the deepest blue hole in the world — over 600 feet deep. Free divers from all over the globe come here to dive it. We saw several of them here and talked with them about how they do it. They train like any other sport and most can hold their breath for 6 to 7 minutes underwater. They do this diving with no tanks, it is incredible to imagine holding your breath that long. I snorkeled the blue hole and the fish were coming right up to me — blue and silver fish that were probably 3 to 4 pounds each.
Free Diving at Deans Blue hole
Deans Blue hole
One day we drove to the most northern tip of the island. Many years ago, they erected a monument to Christopher Columbus for laying claim to the island on 17-Oct-1492. He said these were some of the most beautiful and shallow water islands he had ever seen. To get to the monument, we drove until it was un-driveable (due to washed out roads), then we hiked another 30 minutes to the monument. It sits at the top of a hill that you can climb, but the views are righteous.
Uphill hike to Columbus Memorial
Columbus Memorial
Speaking of righteous, there are beautiful churches on the island with an architecture you might not expect. Here, see what I mean:
Interesting church architecture
Notice this one’s roof was blown away by Irene
Notice the graves in front of the church — this is common
Churches of Long Island
Long Island sports one of the smallest airports we’ve ever seen. Barely more than a room big and it has a rental car company on site. To get to it, you have to cross the airstrip! Too funny.
Watch for planes!
Not exactly the Atlanta International airport!
For a slide show of Long Island, click here.
I’ll leave you with one more photo that I caught at the end of day of fishing. Nice, eh?
Rewarding end of the day!
Hey Steve this is awesome – photos worthy of a travel journal. While we were slumming it in a condo at Panama City Beach (lol) you were in paradise.
I was there in October of this year and and stayed at Saint Peter and Paul rectory with Father Doug. I recognize all the scenery and I too snorkeled at Deans Blue Hole and met some members of the USA Free Diving Team. Your pics bring back good memories.
Hi Rob – Glad the blog brought back some good memories of your recent trip there. Thanks for replying and keeping up with my blog.
My pleasure, we did the island tip to tip. Father Doug is the only Catholic priest on the island so I saw pretty much all the churches fro the inside and out; He has a roaming schedule so service changes all the time. I’m not even Catholic so even that was a learning experience for me. I’ll be going back there sooner or later. I have a prepaid cruise waiting on me. All I have to do is schedule it. Did you have any of the Cracked Conch or Conch Fritters? I also loved the island mac and cheese.