After breakfast in the dining room, we gathered up our things and packed them in my backpack. First and foremost is water; we packed two for each of us and then filled in any empty spots with more when we were done packing. Beyond that, we took the tarp, one beach towel, sunscreen, two Pure Protein bars and I hooked my Teva sandals on to the outside of the pack. We wore our Tilley hats, and I carried my walking stick (the collapsible one, not the trekking poles that don't collapse). The walking stick proved really helpful when walking across the rough spots in the roads and also climbing out to the very southern tip and then down to the Atlantic beach.
We tendered over to the island and left the Princess Cays area at 10:37am. Just as we remembered from last year, it took us about 15 minutes to get to the turn off left off the paved road, another 15 minutes on a pretty rough road, and then we turned right for about a 35 minute walk to the beach on the Caribbean side. We've figured it's about 3 to 3.5 miles to get that far.
New this year are three signs; one just after the right turn onto the road that heads to the southern point announces Lighthouse Beach. Two others are by the large ponds close to the end of the island, and list the birds in the area.
It seems the area is being discovered!
We had been passed by three cars, people staying about 50 miles north on the island who rented 4-wheel drive SUVs for the day to drive down. Eleuthera is about 100 miles long and 1 mile wide, and there is almost nothing in the area around Princess Cays.
We decided to immediately climb up to the lighthouse, and then explored the rocks as far south as we could. There are a few small rocks/islands beyond that one that aren't connected to the Eleuthera, but we went as far as we could. We then climbed down some rocks onto the Atlantic side of the beach, and here we saw the people we had met on the way down, snorkeling and exploring the coral caves on the Atlantic side. Still, 8 people total on a long stretch of beach is pretty good, and we sat there for awhile and ate our protein bars and drank some water.
Finally, we walked back to the Caribbean side a different way, on a sand dune that wraps around the back side of the lighthouse. We allowed ourselves 75 minutes to make the 60 minute walk back, and we needed every bit of that, as it was getting pretty hot and the sun was fairly intense. Why does there always seem to be twice as much uphill on the return??
We had left a note with the medical center at Princess Cays with our names, cabin number and the fact that we were heading to the lighthouse and intended to be back by 3pm. At 2:57pm we popped in there and told them we had arrived back just fine. It's pretty remote down there, with no cell phone signal, so it's a bit chancy making the trek, but we feel confident in the knowledge that someone knows where we are.
We were tendered back to the ship by 3:30pm, and G headed to a hot tub and I lay down for a bit to rest and prepare these posts.
Photo 1: sunrise this morning, off the back of the ship (we were up early!)
Photo 2: the southern tip of Eleuthera, as seen from the Emerald Princess upon her approach to Princess Cays
Photo 3: starting out just after a brief rainshower. This is the road that goes to the Princess Cays turnoff
Photo 4 and 5: the only two buildings on the over three miles walk to the southern tip of Eleuthera, and these are just south of Princess Cays