New York City

On the way to our kayaking trip we managed to make quick visits to several very large cities.  We had about a 24 hour lay-over in New York and decided that the best way to see the city quickly was by taking the New York City Water Taxi tour.  Our first stop was the Statue of Liberty.

While we were taking photos of Lady Liberty, Fireboat 343 cruised past.  It is the largest single purpose fireboat built and has the largest pumping capacity of any fireboat ever built.

We got out at the World trade center stop and strolled to the new 9/11 Memorial, but even walking in NYC has complicated street signs.

We walked back to the Water taxi pick up along a delightful waterfront walk which did much to improve my opinion of the city.

And of course we took pictures of ourselves.

The last stop was the Brooklyn Bridge.  I have ancestors that lived right in the shadow of that bridge, in fact they lived all over Long Island and Manhattan. It was fun to actually see places that had just been names on the map.

Eleuthera

Calvin and I spent a lovely two weeks on Eleuthera in the Bahamas doing basically nothing.  The weather was warm and sunny with gentle tropical breezes, the mosquitoes were fierce and the beautiful pink sand was firm enough for long walks on the beach.  Eleuthera is about 100 miles long and varies between  1/2 and 2 1/2 miles wide.  There are beautiful beaches on both the Atlantic and Caribbean sides.  One particularly beautiful beach now belongs to French Leave, but is still sometimes called the Club Med beach.  It is 2 miles of beautiful pink sand with a slow gentle slope into the Atlantic and there is virtually no one using it. Although someone did leave a few lounge chairs. 

The sand really is pink. There are tiny pink shells of foraminifera that give it the pink color.

We stayed in a house called Desert Rose that had its own pink sandy beach.

There are only a couple of paved roads on the island and we spent a lot of time bumping along sandy tracks.  Our house was at the end of such a track.

We rented a four wheel drive car that couldn't really get above 45 mph with a right side steering wheel because they drive on the left in the Bahamas.  We also rented a kayak which almost fit on the car.

The kayak was not as fast as out sleek tandem, but we didn't have to get anywhere very fast, just to the next beach.

Here is the obligatory shot of Calvin in the kayak

And this is what Calvin sees from the back of the boat. Mostly me not paddling very hard.

Some days Calvin caught dinner for us.  This giant lobster was delicious and slightly illegal because it was out of season.

We also saw giant sea stars, which we did not eat.

And in one protected area we saw dozens of speedy sea turtles.  When we paddled up to them they took off like rockets. Just look at that streamline.

Some nights we would go into Governor's Harbor to eat. 

We saw this raft in the harbor a couple of times.

We also saw a few yachts, but nothing like we saw in Ft. Lauderdale when we took a water taxi ride on our lay over night. There are lot of people with a whole lot of money that congregate in that town.

I'm don't know why you would want a yacht when you can throw a kayak on top of the car and go anywhere you want to go.