Bahamas - do dis, do not do dis...

When in the Bahamas:

DO:

• Ask. We got a room wit' a view, a coffee maker and extra shampoo. Pikey pikey....

• Learn to dive. Complete all the tasks: hovering, equalizing, navigation. Taking the mask on and off underwater. Preferably without a big booger hanging out of your nose. Even though most the the time we were learning stuff to keep us alive, we still saw some good fish, a ray (pretty, big, with teeth), and an aeroplane, sunk for a James Bond film. The Bahamas are a James Bond mecca...a lot of the dive instructors at Stuart's Cove were part time stunt doubles.
  
  
  

Go diving with Hank! Hank was a large Canadian on the same diving course as us. Hank panicked when his large girth kept him afloat, banged his head on the underside of the boat, got twisted up in his gear and had to go back to the boat (blamed the gear) kicked us underwater, got distracted by the fish and end up off course, complained about jet-lag...even though the Bahamas is in the same time zone as Toronto, where he came from. Hank made us look GREAT. (Hank still passed. Scary)

• Meet the locals! The food is better and cheaper outside the hotel, especially at a group of sea-side restaurants/bars called the Fish Fry. There is a lot of conch ('conk'). Conch tastes like boiled rubber. Conch is stewed, fried, grilled and made into a salad. This man, a criminal attorney, told us that the conch is quickly becoming over-fished, endangered - god knows why. He is eating conch salad.
  











• Luke is eating a snapper head - apparently the best part.
  










• Try to learn a few Bahamian phrases. The words are clipped and they talk fast...except to tourists.... 'dis and dat', 'tink'..... Although when we asked a wandering guy on the street where we could get some food nearby, he says 'Of course mon, I'm from Jamaica. How much do you need? It's good stuff'. Since when was marajuana known as 'food'?
  


• Get a taxi to a cheesy nightclub. Your pumpkin could turn out to be a limo, circa 1970.
  
  Avoid the timeshare people. 'Free drinks! Free tickets! Free breakfast!' It ain't worth it - 90 minutes of sales talk from sales rep, Grenville, including 'Are you a model' (in reference to our pay bracket and the fact that I live in NYC). Luke sniggers. 'Well you're tall. You could be.....with a bit of make up on'. Luke suggests a lot of make up would work better. Then he tells us we'd like Miami because it is like New York. He likes Miami, the people are beautiful there. I suggest that maybe I could be a model there instead. 'No, probably not. All the girls are models there. All along the beach,' he says. Then, to Luke, 'And strippers at night. He he.' At the end of the session, Luke tells them the hotels they have listed are crap, because he has stayed in them, and not worth the money. The promise to 'depart as friends, whatever you decide' seems unlikely. We come away with $60 worth of flavored rum, one of which breaks in Luke's bag after the flight.


• Torment the bird, it deserves it for crying like a baby, biting and mocking your laugh.
  




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• Learn how to play craps! But don't lift the dice up off the table. Everyone yells at you.
  


• Go to the cabaret, Jambalaya. A multicultural singing orgasm - lots of taught buttocks. Don't be the guy who gets pulled up on stage for a multi-buttock dance. Your girlfriend won't be impressed. And tourists will recognize you later, down at the Fish Fry.
  


• Play dominos! Or, to be safe, watch it instead. Gets pretty crazy -the rules are the same, but each piece must be SLAMMED down. Torretts is encouraged. Yell! Slam! Push the other players! Luke and I only went into the bar because we thought a fight had broken out.


• Drink rum. Preferably from the road-side daiquiri-only shacks...fresh fruit, ice, rum...yum.

• Visit Atlantis, the not-so-budget hotel on its own island, Paradise Island. The Atlantis has a cave system, waterfalls, sharks and tropical fish, myriad of swimming pools, a massive, glitzy casino with incredible glass sculptures ......
  
  

• ....... fat couples in faded denim and white sneakers walking by the super yachts and boats as big as large houses, Gucci and Cartier and other over-priced tat, Haagen Daas - $10 for three scoops, young girls with braces, thick make-up and mini skirts smoking on the balconies, boys wearing chunky chains, making plans on cellphones - like a mall that's had an expensive make-over. One visit is enough. Escape (with your expensive ice-cream). Possibly maybe accidently 'steal' a small expensive bottle of water.

• Mix it up at Senor Frog's, where they don't serve mojitos because they are a MEXICAN bar. Avoid the local expat Canadian contractors, trawling for cruise boat fodder. Do a Bahamian version of bootylicious, led by an on-stage DJ - 'Sexaholics make some NOISE! Alcoholics make some NOISE!'. Shake off that fried lobster holiday fat with your white girl/guy dance moves....

• And scare the locals with your eerily non-floral, matching outfits....