The Cay to Taking it Easy

We spent a week in the Bahamas in February 1999 and had a good time.

The title is a bit of a play on words in that Key (as in Key West) is spelled Cay in the Bahamas. If things are moving too fast and you feel the need to relax, Treasure Cay is the place. It is on the island of Abaco, which is the size of Rhode Island but has only 10,000 residents. The beach is several miles long and deserted, at least in February. We stayed at Steve Rutledge's villa which has two bedrooms with ham radio privileges.

Son-in-law Brian Broga, daughter Susan and XYL Elaine (L to R) relaxing at the villa

Treasure Cay Beach

Hamming it up as W9RB/C6A

Our daughter and son-in-law, Susan and Brian Broga came along and kept us busy exploring, including renting bicycles to do a little touring. They enjoyed it very much, getting a lot of beach walks and shelling time. While there, we visited Green Turtle Cay and the town of New Plymouth, which is interesting because it is a "loyalist" settlement of people that didn't want to US to win the revolutionary war and emigrated to the Bahamas where they built New England-style homes.

Be sure to try Bahamian food, which is very good and is mainly Conch prepared in every way you could think of. The restaurants are reasonable and at lunch time, several lunch wagons usually appear with a variety of Bahamian food, again very reasonably priced. The snorkeling at Guana Cay is excellent and Mark Carroll knows the waters. There is a nice open air restaurant which is on a bluff overlooking the beach, serving very cold Bahamian beer and other goodies.

Click on Abaco to visit the Island's web page and if you are interested in more info on Steve's place, e-mail him at [email protected].

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