We decided we wanted to rent a car and drive the whole narrow island of Eleuthera. Andy went up to the Marina office to ask about car rentals. The lady in the office looked at him and said “hold on a moment.” Out walked the head chief of the restaurant (which was awsome by the way). This man dressed in chef garb said “you want a car? I rent cars? When do you want it?” Andy told him for the next day and they made arrangements. We had to take a water taxi across to the mainland where we would be met and given a car. $100 cash and a deposit. (Ouch!). He said when we returned we would get the deposit back. This sounded good. What actually happened was the chef was taking a few days off and he gave us his car!!!!! He met us at the water taxi dock, took a cell phone picture of Andys drivers license and we dropped him at the airport. Nothing here happens like the US. It’s a little Mexico like but everyone is so friendly and nice. The guy made $100 from us to drive his nice car, that by the way was from Japan and talked to us in Japanese and all the buttons were written in Japanese. It was funny. The only cd in the car was marked Reggie but it was more “I drink rum, I get drunk, I love rum, boom boom boom, rum rum rum.” It was hilarious and it played over and over!!!!! Ok, forget the music and enjoy the silence. I needed rum after this drive. The island is a one road so called highway called the Queens Highway that went on and on for 100 miles. I was looking forward to stopping in Governers Harbor. I expected a big town. We pulled in to find very old historic building and old shacks that had been left to decay. Beautiful churches. No resorts. NOTHING!!!! We did find a cool spot for lunch but that was literally it!!
We continued down the road after lunch. Andy stopped at a beach and I found great shells and sea glass. Then we stumbled on the Ocean Hole. It is a giant sinkhole in the middle of the island. There were a a bunch of local kids all swimming and jumping in and screaming. There were a bunch of stray dogs that I wanted to bring home (but they also had fleas!). Of course Andy had to jump in. One of the kids said to him “you have blue eyes” like he had never seen blue eyes before.
We really wanted to find a beach. We found a road that said it led to a beach but when we got there it turned into a dirt road and didn’t look passable. As we were turning around a lady came up beside our car and asked if were looking for the beach. We said “yes we are.” She said follow me. We asked if it was passable because we had promise the chef and car owner we would not go down any dirt roads. She assured us it was fine. Her definition no problem and ours differs, but we stayed behind her and prayed the car wouldn’t bottom out and take off the muffler. We pulled up to her house-restaurat-beach. She was adorable. On her back porch people were drinking beers. We were greeted by barking dogs. She said “please feel free to make your way to the beach and enjoy.” We descended a rickety wood stairway and saw coral heads and rough water and a long strip of pink sand beach. It was gorgeous and as expected, Aquaman had to go back for his fins and mask. I enjoyed the beach. It was amazing. Andy emerged from the water carrying a huge conch shell. I was confused because we would never be able to open it to get the conch out. It is very hard and has a very specific method. As he approached I realized The animal was already removed and was just the shell. Still perplexed I watched him walk to me and hand me the shell. We had agreed that my boat would not become a shell museum, I am a bit of a shell freak. I had agreed to not collect shells, just pictures. I had agreed to keep just a small basket of them. I had agreed to only take absolutely perfect ones and not more then a few. The fact that he found this particular one while diving in the ocean, in perfect condition, and pink. He let me keep it. He brought his shell loving wife a shell from the ocean that he found!! My Aquaman really loves me. I will have a whole wall full of them when I finally find my beach house, wherever that ends up being. For now I have 1 really pretty, shiny one hand picked by my sweetie.
The thing about this drive was it felt like the road we had driven 26 years ago from San Diego to Cabo in our Chevy Blazer. We had driven the whole way in a caravan of cars to scuba dive. We were young and bouncing down that road was fun then. OMG!! It took me back to that drive 27 years ago. There was no line dividing the road. It was full of tire crunching pot holes. You had to be on your toes and cars passed and nearly missing us. The pot holes were always in the path, which meant swerving to avoid them. I don’t get sea sick but I did feel a bit queasy on this ride. This car had a bunch of hanging Christmas trees air fresheners and a can of some fragrance. The car seriously was a perfumed box that needed the windows open to help circulate the air. The car had 269,000 kilometers on it 
Our Japanese speaking car.
We crossed the glass bridge on the way down and then again on the way back. One side had crashing waves from the Atlantic, while the other side was calm. Just as we had seen on TV. Pretty spot.
We returned to the water taxi dock, left the “rental car” and headed back.
It was a full day!!
Adventures Of Aquaman 