Christmas Cruise - Scooter Adventure!

During our stop in Nassau, the men in our family decided to head out a bit further afield. Upon hearing our plan to rent scooters, our mother stayed home, instead snapping pictures from her balcony as we left "in case it was the last time I ever saw you."

Renting the scooters was a bit of an adventure in itself; upon approaching the scooter-rental-station we were surrounded by natives, each trying to persuade us the merits of their operation and demonstrating the marvels of collusion. This was fairly frenetic and showing no signs of abating until one of the guides, having previously talked with us, called dibs.  We negotiated (not really) for a pair of 125cc Chinese scooters and 4 helmets, had a quick practice run in the parkinglot, and were set out onto the main roads surprisingly - somewhat worryingly - quickly.

In an attempt to balance both weight and experience, Dad jumped on the back of my scooter while Ethan rode behind Adam. I'd only ever ridden two-up before rarely, and with girls - who are not only lighter than me but also firmly affixed to my torso. Dad was neither of those things. Learning the new balance and dynamics of the machines we set off down the busy market road, careful to keep on the "wrong side," and almost immediately I watched my brothers shoot off down the oncoming one-way street. Luckily, I'm far too smart for that. More luckily, a colorful van cut me off and yelled at me.

So we set off into the heart of the city on our now even-less planned course hoping to reconvene with the younger team... eventually? Adventure! Fortunately the vocal locals turned them around a few blocks into their mistake, and they guessed our course and caught up with surprising ease.

Now reunited and comfortable on the bikes, we set off through / between / around traffic, and meandered out to the coast road, where we set off towards our goal - "Cave Point."  After the first of several traffic circles, Adam passed us and pulled into a development to look over his bike: trying to navigate the high(er) speed turns had his bike scraping the ground. We detangled the kickstart from the centerstand and folded the whole package further in, and set off back down the road. The next few roundabouts went beautifully, Though I could do with a bit less sand hiding on the apexes. On the approach to yet another roundabout we heard a BANG from Adams lead scooter, followed by some smoke and a bit of revving. I immediately set about trying to figure out how he made his scooter do a burnout, and how I could make mine do the same. Before I could discover the secret he took the first exit of the roundabout and glided to a stop on the grass shoulder. He'd lost all power, and his secret was a snapped transmission belt. Adventure!

We luckily found ourselves near a small beach, so we bought a few Gatorades, borrowed a phone to call our scooter guys, and took a swim while we waited for them to sort out our problems. The rental agents raced out to us (literally raced, I think...) and dropped off a replacement scooter.  Looking back to the traffic circle I spotted them tag-teaming the broken scooter away, the rider on the good scooter pushing the rider on the borked scooter back towards town with his sandal.

Which we unfortunately don't have a picture of. So here's a beach and some palm trees!

Now that we had two working scooters again we set off again towards Cave Point, where more adventures surely awaited. However, the new scooter had a working gas gauge (somewhat of a novelty) and not only was it reading E, it was also dropping.  With a bit of help we found a gas station, and only had to off-road a little bit to get there. While fueling, we compared bikes. Both had bodies held on almost-exclusively via zip-ties, and niether had working brake lights. Adam had clearly gotten the cream of the crop with his replacement scooter, as he now had both a working speedometer AND a working horn. I was jealous of the former, and I was super-jealous of the latter.

One and a half gallons later, we were finally ready to go, and made it to Cave Point! for adventures! only driving past it once by accident. Contrary to expectations, Cave Point is less a point filled with caves, and more a single large cave near a point. Complete with a tiki bar / snack shack out in front.

The cave was a large hollow into the hill, which then had three large entrances to a huge room within the hill, and not much else. A boulder, a puddle, and a few bats, I guess. But the triple opening let tons of light in, and my five-inch tripod and I took full advantage. It was a neat cave, and I fully recommend anyone headed to Nassau take the side trip.

Proudly featured in this shot: The entire cave.

After the cave, we found an abandoned parkinglot to experiment in, and after taking a turn on the scooters both Dad and Ethan elected to remain in the pillion position - but I gave Ethan my camera for the journey back.  We started back on the shore road before cutting in to the highway for some full throttle action, attempting to avoid the coastal traffic in Nassau itself. We wound our way through a rather nice ghetto (Adventure‽) before heading back to the coast. Ethan snapped pictures in every direction all the way, aiming by reflex and snagging a few beautiful shots.

Aforementioned nice ghetto, and reflex aiming.

Finally, we snaked our way back up the one-way shore road - going with the flow of traffic this time - and made it back to the boat and the rental agency. We had to wait a few minutes to get our security deposit - which after busted and empty scooters wasn't a tip, no really, we're sure - back, and set off to the boat to clean ourselves up for the formal Christmas Eve dinner, adventure firmly achieved.