Catching Up Again

Well, this post may say 10/29/2013, but it's really 1/6/2014, which is officially 365 days since I started Project 365. I'm not sure if I can consider myself a success, since I missed several days and I'm 10 weeks behind on posting my pictures, but I'm not going to call myself a failure, either. The goal was to make myself feel more present in the day-to-day -- to have some kind of "bookmark" for my time -- and to be more creative/write more. I'd say that goal was accomplished. This will be my 331st post on a blog that until 2013 was mostly ignored. I also have THOUSANDS of pictures, though I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing. There's a balance between recording what happens /  what you do and spending so much time recording that you're experiencing everything through the filter of a camera lens. I read something somewhere the other day that said people remember more when they don't take pictures, which makes sense to me. I'd rather be experiencing than recording, but it is fun to look back at my year's worth of photos.

But more of that later. Back to last October, when we were still on Eleuthera.

On the 29th we took a little trip to see the appropriately-named Ocean Hole in a little town called Rock Sound. This meant tackling the one-lane, sand road away from the house...

...followed by a 45 minute drive south along the island. Eleuthera is a thin, long island, only about a mile wide in some parts, so we got to see both the Atlantic side and the Great Bahama Bank. The Atlantic side was rough and dark; the Great Bahama Bank was calm and bright blue. Rock Sound itself was quiet, the streets fairly empty, as much of Eleuthera was during our stay. I'm guessing it's because we visited during the off season.

According to the welcome packet back at the rental house, Jacques Cousteau once explored the Ocean Hole and couldn't find the bottom. The packet warned us against swimming, because NOBODY KNOWS WHAT'S IN THERE AND NOBODY KNOWS HOW DEEP IT IS. 

I found this very interesting and I really wanted to jump in. 

In person, the Ocean Hole just looked like a regular old lake, until you looked into the water and saw hundreds of salt water fish swim by. This is not a great picture, but it was the best I could do that sunny day. 

I know you can't really see those fish, but they're basically Dory from Finding Nemo. I also saw a Nemo but didn't get him on camera :/ Supposedly there are turtles, too, but we didn't see any, which makes this the second trip we've gone on (#1 = Hawaii) where we could have seen turtles but didn't. Someday I will see some turtles. 

And just as in Hawaii, the touristy locations were not really well-marked, but there was a piece of plywood with "Ocean Hole ---->" spray-painted on it where we needed to turn, and this plaque once you got out of the car: 

It looked like someone has been trying to make the Ocean Hole a park, because there were some nice walkways and a picnic table or two. I feel like if we were there in the summer months, there would have been lots of people, but in late October it was empty. 

We walked around the nearby streets a little, seeing a little cemetery and what could have been a church. 

And then it was time to find lunch (more difficult than you'd think) and the Rock Sound grocery store, reportedly one of the best on the island. Lunch was grilled cheese for me and a conch burger for Michael in a small cafe where the wind rattled the blinds agains the windows, the waitress yelled at her kids as they ran through, and locals stopped in for ice cream and take out. The Rock Sound grocery store had Coke and nacho supplies (of a sort), so it was good enough for us. 

See you in five minutes...err, on 10/30.