Bahamas
At half term in October 1972 we took our kids on their first overseas holiday - visiting my former secretary who had moved to the Bahamas with her accountant husband. We were made very welcome by all the expats there and even ended up `house sitting` for another couple whilst they visited to the UK. Their place was a beautiful bungalow on Old Fort Bay with a pristine white beach and no tourists! A big Halloween Party took place there and Gill - thinking that she was drinking fruit punch (rather than RUM punch) got rather happy and had to lie down with the kids in the bedroom to recover. Beachcombing there we saw barracuda in the shallows and collected sea buns and sand dollars - pictures of both below.
Standing just off New Providence island (which holds Nassau and 70% of the total population of the Bahamas) is Paradise Island - the two are now connected by a road bridge, built since our time there. Paradise Island is just like a huge Disney theme park. Back when we were there it was essentially just a casino for foreign guests and holidaymakers, designed to part them with their cash. The local residents were not legally allowed to gamble there but we went across to play the slot machines whilst they just drank and watched. Gill cranked a handle with only a couple of coins left and hit a fair sized jackpot to everyone`s excitement! We immediately stopped feeding the one armed bandits and walked. The profit was spent on a ticket on an Out Island Airways flight to Harbour Island with it`s famed pink coral sand beach and classic coloured wooden houses. But for our visit it rained! We found a guy selling `sugar apples` and bought half a dozen only for him to profess that he didn`t have any change and gave us more instead! Researching I think the world knows them as custard apples. Very tasty.
Much time was spent amongst locals where we enjoyed barbecues at the Nassau Tennis Club (Anne still plays there), yet more rum punch and games like Yahyzee and Shut The Box as well as swimming in Canadian Ernie`s pool and admiring his trophy blue sailfin Marlin which he had stuffed, mounted and on his living room wall - check out this spectacular fish in the pictures below. We met Americans in Bermudan shorts and sampled the delights of Cafe Martinique. At one stage we managed to fit all five of us - three adults and both kids - into Anne`s Austin Healey Sprite soft top. There were humming birds and tree frogs - one that Jacky spotted and pointed to jumped right into her mouth! We also saw flying fish and wild sansaveria (popular potted plants in the UK known as Mother-in-law`s tongue). At night we heard the strident cicadas and even collected a few empty body casings after their moults. We found solitary bee nests in the vegetation on the wall of Anne and Mike`s apartment which they had never even noticed.
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