Thursday, January 8, 2015

Eleuthera, The Bahamas

Pineapple Air Flight 974

Irresponsible, Inefficient, and Unproductive in Eleuthera

We can’t seem to stop yahooing!

I’m traveling in a party consisting entirely of adults, which is a refreshing change. The kids are home in snowy Santa Fe with Saint Grandma and Saint Grandpa, giving Jason and me a chance to travel with a small posse of friends. Destination: The Bahamas! Starting right this moment, I vow to be totally irresponsible, inefficient, and unproductive for the next two weeks.

Our pasty white party of six assembled at Nassau International Airport after flying in from frozen points north: Austin, our fellow New Mexican desert rat and scuba diver; Jessica, my younger and fairer sister who hails from the mountains of Colorado; Jason’s brother, Spencer, from Vermont, and his sassy sweetheart Sera.

By the time we converged in Nassau, we had each endured numerous flights, snow delays, red-eyes, and a slew of short connections, which hadn’t allowed quite enough time to stop for refreshments. We were all famished. But none of that mattered anymore; we were in the Bahamas! Another round of yahoos and high fives ensued. Just one more short flight to get to our final destination on the remote island of Eleuthera.

We’ve been planning this winter escape for months and all agreed on Eleuthera for a couple reasons: it’s supposed to have amazing sites for snorkeling and diving, and being one of the less developed outer islands, or Family Islands, it’s not overrun by tourists like Nassau. Eleuthera is 110 miles long and, on average, just a mile wide. The west side faces the Caribbean and the east side the Atlantic. I love the idea that on any given day if the diving isn’t so great on one side of the island, we can drive a mile over to the other side and play in a different ocean.

Reaching the Family Islands is a bit of an effort since none of the large carriers offer flights, and this may be the reason these remote islands see so few tourists. The only way to access Eleuthera is on a ferry, mail boat, or in a puddle jumper. In the interest of time, we chose the latter.

Though we were still trapped in Airportlandia, at least now we could see the palm trees waving from outside the windows. While the others rushed toward our gate for yet another tight connection, a tropical trance seemed to set over Jessica whose eyes were still fixed on the palm trees outside. She drifted dreamily toward the window. I’ve always fancied myself my younger sister’s guardian, so I followed her toward the unattainable palms. We closed our eyes and pressed our faces against the warm glass, which melted into sand all around us. The droning loudspeaker that summoned Pineapple Air passengers transformed to breaking waves. “Probably not enough time for a drink,” I heard Jason saying somewhere in the distance, “already boarding...” But it was too late. Jessica and I were already on island time.

The sign above the bar read “Special of the Day: fresh coconut water ‘n gin.” By the time the others found us, we already had tall cool drinks in our hands, the wool sweaters that had seemed so vital a few hours ago discarded at our feet.

“Ah, there you are,” Jason said. “Well, you’re in luck. I guess we do have time for a drink after all. Apparently, they’re still waiting for two other passengers. We told the gate agent we’d be in the bar. She promised not to leave without us.”

Coconut water ‘n gin all around.

Before our frosty glasses even had a chance to begin sweating in our palms, a rotund woman with an impossible pile of black braids balanced on her head and a pineapple stitched to her breast pocket peeked into the bar. “You Jessica and Angela?” she asked. We stiffened and nodded, obediently. Then she peered at Jason. “Dese the two passengers I told you we was waiting for. Load up all you!”

Mrs. Pineapple vanished, leaving us gazing longingly at the full drinks in front of us. Jason hesitated for an instant, then made the bold move that the rest of us had been contemplating. He raised his glass and downed the entire drink in one pull. When, a moment later, he was cringing and clutching his temples, shocked with brain freeze, the rest of us decided against it. The bartender regarded us with pity, then transferred our daily specials to “take-away” cups and waved us toward the door. Liquor to go; who knew? We accepted gratefully, grabbed our bags, and ran for the gate.

Mrs. Pineapple pushed us out the door and onto the landing field. I shuddered when I saw the miniature plane waiting for us at the end of the runway, but forced myself to keep walking. As we neared the aircraft, claustrophobia set in, and my instincts told me to flee. Nine miniscule windows. Two little groaning propellers.

Run away! Run away! You don’t need this.

The tiny vibrating metal box was waiting impatiently, open-mouthed, ready to swallow me whole. I tried not to look flustered as I ascended the stairway, but stopped short at the top, a white-knuckled grip on the door frame, unable to force myself to go inside. I could see the two young pilots in their crowded little cabin. They were pulling levers and pushing buttons. There were lots and lots of buttons. How did they know which ones to push and which to not?

Run away! Run away! There is absolutely no need to get on this plane. You can find plenty to do here in Nassau with all the other tourists.

Jason nudged me gently from behind. I took a long swig from my take-away cup and ducked into the belly of the wee-little beast. The cabin was even more constricted than I had allowed myself to imagine. No flight attendants, no beverage carts, no overhead compartments. Just nine seats on either side of a narrow aisle and an extremely low ceiling. Either that or an extremely high floor, I couldn’t tell. I took a deep breath, tried to reason with my harried brain, which was on the verge of going AWOL, clutched my travel guitar to my chest, and made my way slowly down the aisle. The ceiling got progressively lower so that by the time I reached the open seat at the back of the plane I was nearly crawling. I torqued my body sideways in an attempt to angle myself into the tiny seat without taking the heads off any nearby passengers. After successfully lodging myself into the corner, I wedged my guitar, which had seemed so small just hours ago, between my chest and the seat in front of me. Then my brain and I decided that this would be a very good time to breathe deeply, block out my surroundings, and concentrate very hard on the intricate stitching on the guitar case.

As soon as everyone on the aircraft was seated, the younger of our pilots began clasping various metal hinges around the door. He returned to the cockpit, and seconds later the plane was barreling toward the end of the runway. I grabbed Jason’s hand from across the aisle and inhaled deeply. We bucked violently from side to side as if the airstrip were covered in coconut oil. Finally, the nose lifted, and the little vessel pulled itself away from the earth. As we gained altitude, the city below us disappeared and was replaced by water stretching in every direction. As I gazed out my tiny window, mesmerized by the endless horizon, claustrophobia melted away.

The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is made up of more than 700 islands strewn about the Atlantic Ocean. From my window on Pineapple Air flight 974, I was pretty sure I could see them all. A study in blue stretched below me like the canvas of an indecisive art student. Over here deepest indigo and navy, nearly black. Over there aquamarine and sapphire. Frothy white squiggles here and there, perhaps to mark where waves were breaking over coral reefs. And around the perimeter of each landmass, all shades of azure faded to a vivid turquoise halo, which enveloped each island then abruptly gave way to rose-colored sands.

After fifteen minutes, it finally came into view. The long, thin silhouette of the very island I had pointed out to the children last night on the globe: Eleuthera! Funny how it looked just as unreal now, from above, as it had last night on the colorful cardboard version of the earth. The blues were all just a little too brilliant. A bit tacky and overdone, really. You think they could have toned that down a tad. The skinny island seemed barely wide enough to fit a runway, which I could now see was what our pilots were aiming for.

As soon as the plane had stopped swerving from side to side on the airstrip, but before it came to a stop, our young co-pilot jumped out of his seat again and began his intricate door-unhinging ritual. A few moments later, he peeled back the lid of our sardine can, and I took a deep breath as a burst of tropical air flooded into the cabin.

We filed out of the aircraft, claimed our bags, and entered through the back door of the airport, which was little more than a cinderblock room full of plastic chairs. A few steps later, we exited out the front door where a smiling black couple stood waiting for us. The man extended a muscular forearm toward Jason as salt and pepper curls struggled to escape from under his baseball cap.

“High-guddee! Velcome to duh island! You Jason?”

Jason shook his hand, and the man introduced himself as Drew, the caretaker of the house we had booked. Drew had also agreed to rent us his vehicle since there are no car rental agencies on the island. He welcomed each of us in turn, repeating his mantra.

“High-guddee! High-gudee! High-gudee!”

By the time he got to me, I finally realized that this meant “Hi, good day” and so was able to return the greeting. Then Drew introduced his effervescent wife, Rita, who was dressed in a sparkly sea-foam-green ensemble with matching heels and a shiny gold clutch. Rita shifted the clutch to her left hand, beneath the fluffy Pomeranian, in order to shake hands properly.

After a long list of do’s and don’ts concerning the rental house and car, Drew handed Jason a set of keys.

“You know, mon, dat you gatte drive on duh left side duh road round here? You know dat, right?”

We all nodded in compliance. Jason asked whether there was any pre-rental inspection or paperwork we needed to take care of.

“Nah mon. You on duh island now. A honshake will do. Jus’ do you bes to ‘void duh potholes. I’ll come by ever coupla day ta top off duh tires.”

Drew smiled and pointed us to our new ride: a rickety silver minivan. We peeked in to find that the floors of the minivan had been covered with Oriental carpeting, which struck me as a lovely touch for a rental vehicle. Later, we would realize that the purpose of the rugs was purely functional—to cover places where the floorboards had rotted out. For now, though, we were charmed and enchanted.

We were finally on the ground in The Ba-freaking-hamas! After a quick round of yahoos and fist bumps, we tossed our bags into the back of the minivan, divvied ourselves between its three rows, and puttered off in the direction Drew was pointing.

“Don forget, mon!” we heard him shout. “LEFT TO LIVE!”

Jason swerved quickly from the right lane into the left, just in time to avoid the oncoming traffic, and then again to dodge a pothole the size of a porpoise. He gave Drew a quick thumbs-up from the window, and we were off! Toward the house perched on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic that we would call home for the next ten days.