Eleuthera Journal, day 1
Saturday 3/18:
Left Beth’s parents’ house at 4 am to drive to Dulles, getting there and checking in around five, in time for our flight at 6:30. Mary and I are traveling together, while everyone else is going in a different group from us so we can come back a day earlier than the others and drive back up to Cornell on the 26th.
Uneventful flight to Atlanta (I slept a fair bit on that flight). Went to Starbucks at the ATL airport to get breakfast (bagel and coffee). Flight from Atlanta to Ft Lauderdale also pretty uneventful. One of Mary’s bags didn’t make it to Ft Lauderdale. We had extra time there, though, because our third flight (to Eleuthera) was quite delayed. We checked in around two (for a 3pm flight) and they told us it would be late, probably leave at 4:30, but we should come back at 3:30 to check. All terminals at Ft Lauderdale have free wireless, which was nice. I checked email, talked to Jess, Josh, Jessie, sorted out more facebook stuff, paid my credit card bill… all useful stuff.
When we went back at 3:30 to check on the status of the flight, we found out that it was about to board! Lynx Air seems to be a very unprofessional sort of airline. The place to check in was in the downstairs by the baggage claim, and then out through an unmarked entryway into a separate little area. They didn’t even seem to really verify that we were the people who had checked in (only 15 people on this plane, but it was still odd). Anyway, take-off was delayed a bit more because of problems getting a surfboard stowed in the baggage area. It was just a little twin-prop plane, so space was quite tight. But we made it safely to Governor’s Harbour on Eleuthera and got through immigration and customs ok, having arrived almost at the same time as Beth and her parents and grandmother arrived.
We stopped off at a grocery store en route to the house, not really knowing what to expect when we arrived. Groceries were expensive, but not as bad as one might have feared. We got some basic things for breakfast and lunch. We then had some trouble finding the house because it was dark and we weren’t entirely sure where we were going. There is one road that runs north-south on the island and we had been told where to turn off that. However, that road then ended in a t-junction and we weren’t sure which way to go. It turned out the first way we tried was wrong, but everything is complicated by the fact that the roads don’t have names, and the houses don’t have numbers, just names (the signs for which were sometimes hard to read). Eventually we found it, and discovered that it’s an enormous old place. There are a bunch of bedrooms here. Beth’s parents have a room which has two double beds, her grandmother has a room with a double bed and a bunk bed, and there’s another sort of suite of two rooms, each with a double bed, for me and Beth and Mary. Each of these suite type things has its own bathroom, which is rather nice. The main living room has a ceiling which is perhaps 20 feet tall and is thirty by thirty feet, perhaps. It feels gargantuan. The decor is somewhat kitschy, and I had assumed that the flowers were fake (I discovered on Monday that they are in fact real). It’s not really how I would have chosen to decorate the place, but overall I don’t feel we’re in any position to complain in any way. We didn’t know what to expect, really, but I don’t think any of us thought it would be this luxurious.
We went out to dinner at Mate & Jenny’s, which was recommended to us by the caretaker of the house and one of the guys at the airport. An extremely limited menu, but very tasty food. Broiled grouper with fries, plus vegetables and a quite nice salad. Service was extremely relaxed, but it was a friendly place and it was all very tasty.
Everyone was exhausted after the long day of traveling, so we basically crashed after dinner (which was kind of late in any case).
