“It’s a long way to go for pie.” Patrick cautioned as we bumped our way along the long stretch of Bahamian road from South Eleuthera to North.

“Yes, but it's worth it.” I spoke with authority. It would be our third pineapple pie this week.

Our first day on the island, we’d hiked over a scruffy hill down a crater maze of a road to Surfer’s Beach. As the turquoise water curled under Patrick’s board, I struck up conversation with a deeply tanned group of surfers who, by sheer appearance alone, looked like they were apart of the Bahamian island itself.

We were only going to be in Bimini for two days. There was no time to waste. I wanted Bimini Bread.

Trouble was, we were anchored two miles off the east coast of the island and the tender was broken. Harry, our engineer, was busy trying to fix it. But by the descriptive words coming out of his mouth, I held little hope it would be functioning in time to get me to the craft market and to Natalie’s stall before it closed.

Patrick came into our cabin as I stuffed a few loose bills in the pocket of my swim shorts.

***This story was originally published in MarinaLife Magazine

“Lady.” The voice shouted from somewhere outside the galley. “Hey, lady.”

It wasn’t the first time I had heard it. I hoped it would not be the last. I dried my hands and stepped on deck. The Bahamian sun sizzled against my delicate northern skin. I was going to have to remember to wear sunscreen, even inside the boat. I raised a hand to my brow to shield the shimmering bright light and smiled.

“Seven hundred islands in the Bahamas and we’re flying into one called Deadman’s Cay?” Patrick laughed. “Is that really its name?”

But fly in we did. Because when your best friends invite you to their newly built Bahamian beach house for the weekend, you do not put up much of a fuss about the area’s name.

Deadman’s Cay is the southern stretch of the eighty-mile Long Island, known for its dramatic limestone cliffs, shallow water flats for bonefishing, one of the world’s ten best beaches and its deepest blue hole. We were there to see all that, but what I really wanted was to taste everything the island had to offer. I’d been reading about mahi fishing, stewing the islands goats, slow-roasting its wild hogs and flavoring everything with the local salt from the salt marshes.

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