We were staying at the Abaco Beach Resort and Boat Harbour hotel at Marsh Harbour on Abaco Island. I think I must have taken at least 100 photographs just mooching around the marina at the hotel on the day we arrived. Imagine the photos you see in travel and photography magazines that you think you'll never come across and here you'll find all those kind of photo opportunity literally around every corner.
Our first full day on Abaco we took the local ferry boat out to Hope Town, about an hours ride on calm waters to the place where the famous Candy Striped lighthouse can be found (more great photo opportunities from both ground level and from the very top of the lighthouse).
But the highlight of our trip was our trip to Green Turtle Cay and a day with Brendal. We arrived early and had breakfast at the Green Turtle Club and Marina, they have a great bar there where the walls and ceiling are covered in bank notes, each one signed by its giver which must make the place worth a fortune!
Prepared for our day out, we wandered over to Brendal’s place where we collected our snorkelling gear (the most comfortable mask I’ve ever worn) and by 09:30 we headed out to sea with some other tourists, a family and a group of girls who had been out with Brendal on previous holidays here.
Some 20 minutes into our journey Brendal signalled for the driver to stop the
boat and he disappeared off the back. Three minutes later (this man free dives and seems to be able to hold his breath for ever) Brendal pops up with two Conch (pronounced in The Bahamas as ‘conk’) which he deposited on the back of the boat and once again dived down appearing minutes later with a further two fresh Conch.
Back on board and we were on our way to the dive site. Brendal took the opportunity to prepare his freshly caught sea food on the way, which was an amazing experience just watching him, standing on the back of the boat which must have been doing a fair few knots, get the thing out of its shell and prepare them like a master chef. Fresh Conch salad was just one of the dishes served up that lunchtime, but more about that later.
20 minutes later we arrived at a reef, the divers donned their wetsuits and air tanks whilst us snorkelers were off the back of the boat within seconds. The water was crystal clear and beautifully warm and the marine life and coral was fascinating. I’ve snorkelled on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, which was amazing, but I think I saw a greater range of fish, including a reef shark here in The Bahamas. The abiding memory I will have with me always was of Brendal sitting on the seabed (again free-diving), holding a Grouper fish in his arms and feeding it by hand. Absolutely amazing.
An hour or so later we were all back in the boat telling each other the fantastic sights we’d seen and what a brilliant time we’d had so far, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet! We set course for Manjack Cay and Brendal’s adventure beach and a relaxing afternoon ahead.
As we made our approached I had one of those ‘pinch me’ moments. It seemed as if our expedition was getting better and better with each new experience. The beach was an empty but absolutely stunning setting and I felt like we were in a tv commercial for some exotic drink or other. As the boat was being tied to the quay Brendal was looking in the water and saying “they’ll be here in a minute” but he didn’t say who the ‘who’ was that he was referring to. Minutes later we found out as we were greeted by a beautiful Stingray, which we were reliably informed by Brendal was one of his friends who had been coming to meet his boat for the last twenty years or more.
Brendal invited us to feed them with some of the Conch he had put aside and he showed us how to hold the food, either between our fingers with our palms flat on the seabed (you can see that the water was very shallow) or between our toes! The stingray found the food almost instantly and the feeling of it gently nibbling the food from my hand was just amazing.
Whilst we were enjoying ourselves Brendal and his crew were preparing our lunch of fresh fish on the barbeque Brendal leaves on the beach for his regular visits and of course the Conch salad. The food was great and to top it off Mark, one of the crew, climbed a palm tree and picked a coconut for our dessert, another ‘pinch-me moment’!
The rest of the afternoon was spent jumping off the quay, swimming, lazing in the shallows and just chilling out. The day out with Brendal and his friends could not have been any better and is a memory that I will treasure forever.
