March 25, 2010

 

 

At first glance, the price of $375 per person for the 007 Thunderball Safari day trip from the Bahamian island Exuma seems like a pretty penny to pay. But when the day is done you realize that the money could not have been better spent.

 

How many days do you get to spend in an open flats boat, zooming over shallow crystal blue water as large stingrays swim lazily away?

 

How often can you snorkel into a hidden cave beneath a small island and sit on a limestone ledge, exactly where James Bond (Sean Connery) perched in the 1965 film Thunderball, as he worked out how to recover two stolen NATO atomic bombs from the evil SPECTRE without spilling his martini or loosening his grip on the comely Claudine Auger?

 

 

 

 

How often do you get to eat fresh pineapple on a sand bar that stretches into the distance, feed grapes to endangered giant iguanas on a beach, swim with nurse sharks and slip chicken wieners into buns and drop them in the snorting mouths of 200-pound swimming pigs?

 

Well it’s not every day, is it?

 

About those pigs, because I know you’re going to ask -- everyone asks: residents of a neighbouring island put them there to forage for themselves some years ago, returning at Christmas to bring home a little bacon. The pigs figured out that visiting boats could mean something more interesting than their usual diet of anything they can find, and a tradition of swimming with pigs was born.

Captain Ray Lightbourn and his son Justin are the genial hosts of the 007 Thunderball Safari. Their family has called Bahamas home for close to 300 years, though the current generation spent a decade on Vancouver Island before returning to bluer pastures. The father-and-son team’s office is the 35-foot Sea Rocket Exzooma.

 

The day trip covers a lot of water – nearly 200 kilometres of the stuff -- tinted in myriad shades of blue. The Exuma Cays consist of a string of 365 islands and cays, and the Lightbourns can tell entertaining stories about most of them, including their famous and occasionally infamous owners.

• “That one’s owned by Nicholas Cage, but it’s for sale, major tax problems,” says Ray.
   

• “That island is owned by (country singers) Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. Their house is nearly done.”
   

• “This couple bought the island in search of peace and privacy. He painted the whole place last summer, always naked. Gave our guests a thrill.”
   

• “That’s Musha Cay, the world’s most expensive resort. It’s owned by magician David Copperfield and you and 23 friends can have it to yourself for just $350,000 a week.”

 

The glorious day is interspersed with interesting stops to feed the iguanas and pigs, snorkel the cave and observe or swim with the nurse sharks, as multi-million dollar yachts bob above. The lunch stop is at Royal Plantation Island, a Sandals-owned private island featuring just six rental homes. It’s a nice opportunity to see how the other 1% lives.

 

 

 

 

 

On the return journey, rum punch makes a welcome appearance and a final stop is made at an island that’s home to 2,000 coconut palms – and little else. It’s one more chance to savour the unique landscape of the Exumas – flat as a pancake yet uniquely compelling. It’s also a chance to savour a delicious rum cake home-baked by Ray’s wife. Personal touches like these make this Island Routes tour a very special experience. But next time I want to see pigs fly.

The 007 Thunderball Safari is offered to Exuma visitors by Island Routes, a young but fast-growing Caribbean excursion operator. The company was created by Sandals Resorts President Adam Stewart who wanted to offer high quality, eco-friendly sightseeing tours in the region.

 

Courtesy: Bruce Parkinson