You remember how Delta celebrated my 2 million miles mark the other day as I was getting on to my flight?

Well, something like that happened again this morning. This time for reaching Delta 360 status. Dipanjan (DJ), Parijat (PJ), Sharmila and myself had just settled down in the Skyclub when Delta showed up with a bottle of champagne and four glasses to celebrate the new status!!

Apologize for the picture quality. I took a screenshot from a video that PJ took.

This vacation has gotten off to a flying start…

One more island vacation. This time, we are off to visit the island that my friend Ted Dimbero grew up in. I had not heard of it till he mentioned it when we had gone to Eleuthera. To add to our fun, Dipanjan and Parijat is joining us too!!

30 years back on this day… and today…

You can see from the aerial view why it is called Marsh Harbor. If not for the blue waters, it could as well have been named Martian Harbor

Marsh Harbor Airport in Abaco island

Picked up a rental car from the airport. Sure enough, it is driving on the other side of the road and all that. I made the mistake of flicking the wiper instead of turn lights only once in the whole day.

But look at the Google maps. You see the problem? It is asking me to take the roundabout form the wrong side!!! (In UK style driving, you will have to take the roundabout from the left side)

The water looks outstanding!

The camera and a bottle of wine. Sounds like a vacation for me alright!!

Check out some of the local islands (“cays”)

… by a game of volleyball! There were some balls lying on Treasure Cay public beach. We decided to make the most of it.

This is local to Abaco. Looks very different though.

These pigs are not indigenous to the island. Somebody brought them here and never owned up. A gentleman from nearby Green Turtle Cay heard about the malnourished and dehydrated pigs and from 2014 started ferrying water and food for the pigs. I believe now the government has taken over the caring of the pigs. Very unique pigs who regularly swim in the ocean. I believe there is another island with these swimming pigs near Exuma (another island in the Bahamas)

Also known as Manjack Cay. Look at the color of the water on the way. Dazzling display of blue!

What do you think happened next? 🙂

It is actually only about a foot high. The phone was placed very low to get this perspective. The composition was inspired by DJ.

The sand was pink in color due to pulverized red reefs and white sand. Reminded us of the beaches in Eleuthera.

As we sped from Nunjack Cay to Green Turtle Cay, Dipanjan suddenly pointed to something up in the sky. When I looked up I saw a sun halo! It was very difficult to take a good picture with the boat bobbing up and down in choppy waters. And pointing to the sun to take a picture is seldom successful.

But as you can see, there was a rainbow perfectly circular in shape around the sun. These are caused by cirrus clouds and are actually tiny ice crystals.

That was a great sight!

We saw a few of them. Each had a beautiful looking shell as you can see with this one…

Photo courtesy: Dipanjan

No kidding, that was the name of our captain. He was born and brought up in Green Turtle Cay. We went out for a walk where he told us the history of pretty much every single house – those that were standing and those that were blown away by hurricane Dorian in 2019.

We also saw the cemetery where his parents are buried. And then finally came to a town square where his dad’s bust has been put up (for supporting the island’s progress).

Captain Sawyer’s daughter is studying in Tennessee and his nephew is in Roswell, Georgia. Which is one town over from me. I have a feeling this is not the last time I have seen him!!

That is the jail of the island. There are three cells. Last time anybody was put in there was when captain Sawyer was a young boy – so about four to five decades back. We went and saw the house the chap had broken into too! Funny thing – the prisoner escaped from the jail in one hour!

By the way, the island has exactly one cop and an old ATV is the official “cop car”!!

It was a hectic day. Feeding the swimming pigs of Noname Cay, feeding the sharks and stingrays in Nunjack Cay, feeding ourselves in Green Turtle Cay… not to speak of the small stint at volleyball before all this. I was ready to go up to the room after we got out of the car when Dipanjan came up with this bright idea – let’s go sit by the beach.

Bereft of any better ideas, we followed him. Nobody else was there. But the bright embers of a beach fire that was evidently lit that evening was glowing vigorously. Sitting by it and warming up the feet felt heavenly!!

Have you ever finished brushing your teeth and then realized that there is no water coming from the tap? Well, I woke up to that fact this morning!! It was too early to call the building management to figure out what was going on. Well, it was too early, but I did call and leave two voicemails.

We had enough water to make coffee, tea and all that. But toilet was the issue. Well, after about an hour of drinking coffee/tea, we laid out our plans.

The three of us grabbed three trashcans from the bathrooms and headed to the pool to get water to fill up the toilet tank. Midway thru my walk, I heard the downstairs folks yell that water had come back.

I started yelling myself. First to Sharmila and Dipanjan to not worry about filling from the pool. And then to Parijat who was taking pictures of us from the unit to check for water.

Finally, made friends with the folks downstairs. The lady has been coming to the island for the last 35 years. She lives in Wyoming for six months and here for six months.

When I asked her about the water, she nonchalantly said – “Oh! this happens in the island all the time!!”

That was one heck of a rough ride. The winds are very strong today and the waters are extra choppy.

After reaching Elbow Cay, we grabbed a golf cart and reached Firefly Sunset Resort for lunch

The picture does not do justice to how beautiful this place is. Tahiti beach is where you can see the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The sand bars go a quarter mile in.

We met a family from Alpharetta (that too near downtown Alpharetta) and one from Cumming on the beach!!

However, we did not spend much time there since we could see the rains rolling in from the Atlantic side. We knew we were going to be in for some sharp island showers.

Once the rain started, we scooted in our golf cart as fast as we could. It was not fast enough. We were fairly wet by the time we took shelter in Abaco Inn. The place was totally crowded with many other tourists getting the same idea as us. You could see the ocean had gotten angry with high waves and furious winds.

Every time a wave crested, the wind blew off the top like a plume of smoke…

It was like they were spewing all the water out in anger from not being able to breach the cliff. With a promise to come back with vengeance…

Unfortunately, most of the shops were closed on a Sunday. It was still pretty nice though.

I understand this is only one of the last three manual lighthouses left in the world. This one actually uses kerosene (and a huge wick) to give out light.

We still had another 20 minutes before the ferry would pick us up for the return journey. Everybody was resting in the golf cart.

Not too sure of what to do with my time, I started hunting for nails and screws lying on the ground. I saw one half buried in the ground. That led me to wonder how many more might be there. In about 20 minutes I could dig out about 50 of them! It is a sheer wonder that there is not a very active tire shop nearby !!

Back in our own Treasure Cay, we went to explore the edge of it. It ended in a – by now very familiar – pattern… some nice houses with colorful walls, some completely battered houses, incredibly blue waters and the soothing sound of constant waves.

That island you see is the Sunrise Cay.

You remember how I saw my first sun halo yesterday? Well, get this… had yet another first time experience sitting outside while having dinner today.

The four of us were busy eating when my eyes caught something in the sky. My intuitive reaction was that it was a firecracker. I called out to the rest to show it. However, it seemed very different from a firecracker. For one, it kept on going for a far longer time than a firecracker. For another, it seemed too bright.

A few of the other diners got up to see it too.

We then realized that what we saw was a rocket launch. It was a first time for all of us. I am glad I got a video of it – at least for part of the journey.

Googling up Cape Canaveral schedule, we also realized that it was a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket!!