Everyone went to the Bahamas!

To say this blog post is late would be an understatement. Instead of giving myself a hard time for taking so long for getting around to this, I’m going to choose to celebrate that I finally did it. Or started it. You know what I mean.

ANYWAY. In December a whole gaggle of us descended upon Freeport, Grand Bahama. The group consisted of my brother (Beorn), his wife (Sabrina), and three kids (Parker, Crosby, Hudson), Sabrina’s mom (Brigitte) and her spouse Yves, my dad and Sylvie, my mom and Michael, and of course Kirby and me. After a short flight from Montreal, we boarded the Sunwing buses and made our way to the resort to see if we won the room lottery. As we all got settled, a decent rain storm rolled in. But that didn’t stop (three of) us from getting our toes in the water.

The rain was really intense for most of Saturday and into Sunday, and getting around the resort was a bit treacherous.

Even the cats took shelter. Just going about his business.

While we waited out the storm, I went to enquire about a new room since the first one was in pretty rough shape. And it paid off because the room they moved us to was much nicer. Look how close the beach is!

By Sunday afternoon the rain had moved on and we were left with a beautiful post-storm sunset.

The next day was Monday and all of us (minus Brigitte and Yves) decided to go on an excursion. It started off at the Garden of the Groves, a local botanical garden. Even the children had a good time.

Given it was December there weren’t many flowers in bloom, but it was fun to wander around to see the foliage together and learn more about the island.

After the botanical garden we got a tour of the cruise ship port, a rum distillery, a fruit market, and one of the shopping districts. I actually quite enjoyed this tour (this is a somewhat controversial opinion). I found it interesting to learn about the local industry and economy and to become better acquainted with the island.

The next day Kirby went fishing and the rest of us hung out on the beach. And the beach was quite beautiful, if not particularly warm. Some of us read our books in the shade.

Others played in the water.

And some of us discovered new passions.

The following day we hired a car from the hotel and went to explore the Lucayan National Park. All 13 of us fit in this van if you can believe it (I have photographic proof in case you doubted me).

The national park has two caves you can walk into as well as beautiful walking paths.

We also enjoyed the boardwalk through the mangroves which happens to be an internationally recognized Important Bird Area. Someone might want to look into this because I think the only bird I saw was a crow. It was still a nice walk, and I won’t hold it against the crow.

The rest of the week was spent enjoying the resort. On occasion we would shelter from the wind and play cards and games in the lobby.

The kids also enjoyed the beach and the food. Often at the same time.

I was surprised by the food at the resort, it was quite good.

And there were more than one epic family dinners.

The only thing left to cover is the wildlife. Kirby and I were very pleased to find our resort was occupied by a large feline population. We kept them well fed.