This will be a two post day so as not to rush through a very long adventure.
We decided to rent a car to the explore while we still had some nice weather. The Island is not very wide but over 100 miles long and we are at one of the Southern tips. We decided to maybe just venture to the middle part of the island. This ruled out a trip to the Sapphire Blue hole, Preacher’s Cave and Spanish Wells. We had been to the Glass Window and The Queen’s Bath’s. The lovely Gaulding Beach was also far north.
Other things on the list were the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve, Edwin’s Turtle Lake marine reserve, a pineapple farm, Surfer’s Beach, Rock Sound, Governor’s Harbour and Hatchet Bay. We also needed to fit some provisioning into the equation.
We rented a car and headed up the Queen’s Highway, of course. Our first stop was Rock Sound which we knew well. We started at the hardware store but it was closed on weekends. We then went to the grocery which is super nice but only open until 4 pm. We decided to get non-perishables and get the perishables later in the day.
We then went to Fish Street to visit our friend Warren the artist and to take a picture of our friend Jeff’s favorite place, the Ocean Blue Hole. Warren was in fine form with his belly laugh, his positivity, his scattered energy.
We bought a painting of some fish, most likely a yellow tail snapper or a goatfish, mostly gray with a bit of yellow. Somehow it made sense that Warren painted a common fish rather than choosing one of the more exotic and colorful fishes. To him, they were likely mostly silver with a hint of gold.
We also bought a refrigerator magnet on which he had painted two islands, each with thin strips of sand rising out of blues, topped with green vegetation and two coconut trees. It was his last one and he was sad to part with it until he realized that it was meant for me to have it. His niece had sent him the magnetic backing.
The studio had a lot of new art, many framed in the drawer frames of a dresser he had dismantled from the dump. The sunlight shone through a large new painting of Rock Sound from the village side, lovely clean, blooming and colorful as Warren sees it.
In our short visit, there were many stories and life lessons too numerous to record but to be remembered for another time: the spilled paint that would not come off the tile, the wasp nest, the air conditioner, the ants and the elephants, the recycling his trip to Alaska with Rick and Caroline of Sundowner’s Green Turtle Cay. We took the requisite photos and moved on, glad to have seen Warren one more time and grateful for his artistry.
The Ocean Blue Hole park was fairly clean and the fish were still near the steps hoping for breadcrumbs. We missed Jeff and Deb and remembered our adventures last year fondly.
We drove by and walked out on the dinghy dock which looks quite nice. There are waterfront building renovations going on and it seems the roadside trash is a little better. The road around Rock Sound is also newly paved with lines and reflectors. Overall, we found Rock Sound in a little better shape than it was last year. I like to think that it is moving toward Warren’s vision.
We decided that the turtle lake preserve would be a fun stop and drove that way, only to find it had closed. Google had it open but it looks like it may have been closed for several years. At that point, we were close to Governor’s Harbour so we decided to proceed there for lunch. We had planned for the Sunset restaurant but passed The Farm on the way and made a stop there. The Farm is a little grocery/ farm/market with a variety of items. They bake fresh bread and baked goods which sell quickly as do their lasagnas. They have fresh lettuces in bins and make salsas and chutneys.
We could not resist a vegetable lasagna and ate part of it at the picnic table. The rest, we placed carefully into our small cooler. It would turn out to be enough for two more meals.
After the farm, we moved on to Governor’s Harbour. It was a nice anchorage and a nice town. We stopped at the grocery there to find out their hours to plan the rest of our provisioning on the return trip. We arrived close to two and found out they were closing at one because of the Junior Junkanoo which is a Junkanoo festival where different schools compete for Junkanoo honors. There are prizes for best float, best dance, enthusiasm, drum beat etc. The festivities were to start at 6 pm. It seemed too good to miss even though it would make for a late night. We had the car for 24 hours.
The store was trying, yet failing to close so we moved on to another store which was staying open later. We bought a cooler, some ice and our perishables were safe for the longer day.