HOLLA 3

Perri, Kara and Hope

Washington National Airport

Eleuthera Bound!

View From our First Puddle Jumper......


Eight days on an island where none of us had traveled before seemed to be a bit of a pipe dream to say the least. None of us live lavishly. After all, we have mortgages, car payments, kids in college, school, sports......how could we afford it and yes, justify the time away from all of our responsibilities.....Yet, the more we dreamed, the more of a reality it became. Google searches began. Rentals were mused over. Perri and Hope, the masters of the internet, found countless homes to choose from - they had the (then) luxury (prob not best word to use when describing work) of working together and quite handily "worked" vacation home searches into their daily tasks :) Pictures of the beautiful beaches fueled our determination to make this vacation work....and it did! April 8 we were off - driven by our driver Fred (my dad) to National Airport. (I must say, my initial excitement was somewhat dampened when I realized there was no way to get to the island other than flying on a PUDDLE JUMPER. Perri and I even toyed, however so slightly, with going from Nassau to Eluethera on the mail boat!) Excitement won out though and off we went from Washington National to Florida (right off of one plane - straight to the one waiting! Couldn't have asked for that to be better timing), then to Nassau (after drinking Kaliks in the airport parking lot and waiting a grueling amount of time for that little plane) and finally got on board that little plane and off we flew to one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen...

HOLLA......2

I am so excited that we are finally getting this on a blog. We have wanted to share our adventure with everyone! If I ask one more person "have you seen my Eleuthera pics?", it'll be one too many:}
I was so excited when my life long dream to visit Eleuthera became a reality and to make it into an "annual girlz trip" has been ICING on the Cake! We couldn't have had a better "trio". Number two priority on our list was "how can we do this - cheap, cheap, cheap?" None of us are lottery winners....far from it. So we knew we were gonna have to make some compromises..... Lucky for us Hope and I are internet fReAkS! We spent countless hours looking at rentals, together, alone, together on the phone. It became an obsession that we loved. We would send Kara all of the links to what our options were - she got the good part.....veto or keeper! Next was the daily flight check! Ended with a great deal on Spirit Airlines to Nassau and Southern Air to Eleuthera. NOTE: Puddle Jumper in Hope's post! Not for those with "fear of flying" (unless of course you are armed with parachute and xanax.) Layover in Nassau needs to be as short as possible.....airport is hot, there is no locker/baggage options should you want to wander around and find "parking lot/tent" food! But if you want a beer - we highly recommend the Bahamas Beer - KALIK. You can brown bag it anywhere in the Bahamas - HOLLA!! You're on vAcA!! Nobody told us we could bring along one on de plane! Probably for the best though - no potty on puddle jumper... Lots of pics, ohs, ahs and boom you are there. What a beautiful sight flying over the outer islands and seeing all the beautiful colors - we swore we would be able to see a shark from a mile away. We landed at the tiny airport at Governor's Harbour -trekked outside where Kara and I frantically looked for that "hidden lighter" so we could have a much needed ciggie! Hope scouted out the luggage and Kara found our "car rental gal." We were off - wow. LEFT SIDE PLEASE, LEFT SIDE KARA!!

HOLLA....

This year three of us embarked on our first ever "solo" vaca; no kids, no hubbies, no internet, no cell phone...just peace & quiet for EIGHT days!

The idea for the trip started with Perri. Her dad owns a piece of property on the island and she always wanted to go there. Since all three of us love the beach and longed for a vacation...we said "let's just go!" After lots of hours on the internet we found a house and a great deal on a flight.

Our flight left DCA at 6:45 a.m and by 1 p.m. we were drinking a Kalik in sunny Nassau.


Since we were new to traveling to the outer islands, we spent 3 hours in Nassau waiting for our puddle jumper to Eleuthera...but three hours with great friends goes by quickly!!

We arrived in Eleuthera at 4:30 in the afternoon. Happy to feel the warm sun on our face and feel the tropical breeze in our hair. The next eight days will be an adventure that we will remember always.....

Coming in for a landing at Governors Harbour