Hello everyone.
Here I am back in the Bahamas at the Orange Hill Beach Inn.
The cold & cough are still with me. I was unable to change my flight to a later date so I got lots of decongestants and cough medicine and flew on drugs. Actually, it was not too bad. All my flights were on schedule and I arrived in Nassau right on schedule at 6:01pm.
The diving for today and tomorrow had to be cancelled so I will stay here for an extra couple of days and get the diving in later. First I am going to get some new diving equipment for myself. A regulator, mask&snorkel, fins and a wetsuit are at the top of the list as my minimum requirements.
Christmas holidays at home were fun and hectic. I really enjoyed my visits with everyone. My apologies to those I was not able to get in contact with. Unfortunately my time was very limited and getting a cold cut my visiting time down by 2 whole days. I never had time to do everything I wanted to, including buying dive equipment at home where it is considerably less expensive.
Junkanoo was great. I arrived at Orange Hill in the middle of a New Year's Eve barbecue dinner party. Immediately befriended two women from Madoc, Ontario (yes, there are lots of Canadians here) who I ate supper with. We all got along like old friends. After eating we talked until 1:15am with a bar full of people coming and going all evening. Then we freshened up and got a ride into Nassau in the Orange Hill Inn vans. There was a crowd of 15 going.
Diane, Edie and I went down to Bay Street and stood on the sidewalk enjoying the Junkanoo Parade of colours. The costumes are fantabulous. Bright colours, mirror tiles, reflectors of every type, and anything that blows in the breeze. The "head pieces" are large enough that only large, heavy men can carry them. Every costume, mask and headpiece is an engineering feat and an artistic delight. The music is loud beyond belief (one band had over 40 drums and 50 brass instruments alone. Then there are the whistles and cowbells. The rhythms are intoxicating and powerful. Nobody can stand still and just watch. The whole crowd is alive with the energy and moving to the rhythms.
We arrived back to the Inn at 5:00am so Diane and Edie could catch their 6:00am flight to Long Island Cay. It was a good thing though, as I should have been in bed resting the cold. So by the time I got to bed at 5:30 I had been up and going for more than 25 hours. There were a few short naps on the plane and in the Atlanta airport (5 hour wait for the next flight) but that was all.
That's it for now. Gotta go get some lunch.
Posted by gailene at January 2, 2003 12:42 PM