the queen travels: Birthday celebration and on to Princess Cays, Bahamas

Today, March 1, was my day … birthday, 69 years old. So far, mostly good and I’m sure hoping to keep on going and doing fun things like I have been …

Princess left my birthday wishes on the cabin door today.

While today was an at-sea day, there was still plenty to do. Making a Mardi Gras mask with feathers, fake jewels and glitter was on my list.

Now how will I get that home?

Other attractions included listening to the Pop Choir as our friend, Vangie, sings in it (she forgot and didn’t show up for their performance) but it was great anyway, as well as Bingo, dinner in one of the dining rooms with friends and one of the production shows that are always good.

Dining room staff sang "Happy Birthday" and brought me a cake. Chocolate, of course.

One candle is always appropriate these days.

From left, Cheryl, me, Jaz, Mike and Vangie. It was a great dinner with great friends.

Sometimes it doesn’t seem like you're doing much on at-sea days, but when you’re tramping up and down the steps each time to get somewhere and do something, that does take up a bit of time and your day really is filled with fun.

A beautiful Caribbean sunrise started our day off well.

Our last stop, on this 10-day section of our cruise was Princess Cays, March 2. It’s located on the south end of Eleuthera, the Greek word for freedom, and is the island known as the birthplace of the Bahamas. There are only 13,000 island residents, so it would be pretty laid back and informal. Eleuthera is the pineapple capital of these islands and has about 340 days of sunshine per year. It’s not very big being 110 miles long and at its widest point, only two miles. I’d not want to be on this one during a hurricane.

Princess Cays is the cruise line’s private resort and beach and it would be bustling once we arrived. However, when there’s no ship in port, only two resident on-site managers care for the Princess site.

We had to get off the ship via tender, the first on this trip, and we had a dune buggy adventure awaiting us. The white sand was blinding, and we stayed in the shade to wait for our guide to take us on a short walk to the dune buggies. Jaz and I’d signed up together as they can hold two people, so it’s a two-for-one price. We would both drive it so all would work out well.

The dune buggies were a variety of colors, but we wanted red.

The guide explained how to drive them, offered us helmets if we wanted them (we didn’t), and dust masks, which we took as we were told the road would be extremely bumpy and dusty. Neither of those statements were untrue and we were glad we’d taken the dust masks. We were also reminded that we’d be driving on the left side of the road.

These were non only unattractive, they were hot to wear, but they did keep the dust out.

Jaz drove first, taking us over the pavement, then the dirt, and then gravel mixed with both large and small rocks. I don’t believe there were any medium-sized ones. It was a very rough ride as we drove along roads that did not seem well-traveled, and we were told that there aren’t that many folks that come out to the point because of that.

Yep. Once again I'm on a crappy road, but at least this time I'm not on my motorcycle.

We continued along and the road seemed to get even rougher with huge drops between rocks and gravel. The road ended at a place called Lighthouse Beach, known for an abandoned lighthouse, but even more for the pink and unsullied sand that we saw. We left our footprints as we strode along it and up a short rock path to the lighthouse. It was an old stone building, with a rotting wooden floor. Behind it was a smaller building that had been a cook house.

The old lighthouse was a pretty photo, but there wasn't much around it.

This was the cook house used at the lighthouse.

The view from up top near the lighthouse was beautiful, though.

Okay that’s nice, but after a short time I wanted to go back down to the beach. It was beautiful … and I wished I’d worn a swim suit, but we didn’t know we’d be given the opportunity to frolic in the water if we chose. I did get my feet a little wet as I walked along … and I was okay with it.

This was a spectacular beach and worth the ride out to this part of the island just to be on it.

Once our guide got the buggies turned around we headed to our next stop. I now drove the dune buggy. Jaz had warned me that the gas stuck and the handling was iffy … yep, absolutely true on all counts. But it was fun driving, and mostly like the four-wheelers I’ve driven in Michigan. We were Number One behind our guide this time, and I guess I wasn’t going fast enough to wreck the machine as another guy and his wife came up and passed us on the right. Well, you know that throws up a challenge to me … so I waited like a cat in the grass, and when the opportunity came shortly thereafter, I passed his ass back. Get behind me in line where you belong, dude!!! And he stayed there.

Our next stop was the abandoned Anglican Church of the Assumption. It must have been beautiful in its time as churches are … built of stone … but now broken down and sad.

Many buildings were built of limestone on this island.

We got back to our buggies and headed back to Princess Cays where the Princess staff had prepared a lunch on the beach for us. It was marvelous and we had a good lunch sitting at picnic tables under covered pavilions.

As far as the eye could see there were beach chairs, clamshells and other beach paraphernalia. Would you believe there are more than 3,000 beach lounges … chairs, clamshells. I believe it. There are also little bungalows you can rent that are air-conditioned, paddle wheelers, kayaks, and any other kind of water toy you’d like to rent. The water is a beautiful turquoise-blue and the most inviting I’ve seen in any of the places we’ve visited.