As a native New Yorker whose best childhood memories occurred at the south shore beaches of Long Island, I want my kids to know that this is not your mother's Long Island. Long Island, Bahamas is filled with caves, ruins, blue holes, magnificent ocean beaches, well-run local businesses, fisherman, laborers, and many Americans who own homes here, where they spend 8 or 9 months of the year and find their true sense of home. Two such people are James and Shari, introduced to us by our sailing friends Ed and Eileen, who sailed the Bahamas for 17 winter seasons and were mentors to us. James and Shari have become amateur archeologists since unearthing a trove of Lucayan artifacts beneath their land in Wemyss. They work closely with paleoethnographer Bill Keegan of the University of Florida to catalogue their findings and contribute to his research on the rise and fall of the Lucayan culture in the Bahamas. It's been wonderful to reconnect with them and hear the history of their recent specimens, which span several hundred years. We joined them for dinner at Club Washington on Wednesday, where locals help Merlene get out the orders each week, while her son Darron is recuperating from a stroke in Nassau.Her ribs were really something special. We also loved our blackened grouper at Tiny's, which has a beautiful dock where boaters can tie up.

Yesterday we spent the only settled day this week snorkeling with James and Shari and their friends Cheryl and Chris between Coconut Bay on the eastern shore to Guana Cay, where the small curly-tailed lizards ran across mounds of beached coral to greet us. In addition to the fountains of reef fish that streamed through the coral heads as we snorkeled, we saw an 8 foot long manta ray and several sea turtles in the grassy shallows. Five large barracuda always seemed to be lurking nearby.

We are indebted to Craig at Seafarer's Marine for his help in picking up our new water maker membrane from the mailboat and helping us change it out. We were lucky that that Revere Marine in Nassau rushed the membrane onto the mailboat so that we could receive it here on Long Island the next day. We had to leave Thompson Bay to make some water, since the mud and silt in this bay are not recommended for watermaking, but we came right back to our spot in the anchorage, and look forward to seeing more of this special island.