How to win an entire Bahamian town over with red bull vodka

Ahh, the Bahamas. What is there not to love? The ocean, the conch salad, the sun.... just to name a few.
And you know what makes the Bahamas even better? When it's free!

D and I love to go on FREE trips. Yes, Free. How do you go on a free trip you ask? SIMPLE! Sign up for multi million dollar home tours!

Not time shares.

Actual multi million dollar property tours all around the world!  Happens to be, they will fly you there in a private JET!!

(we have done this 2 times, this is time #1)

Let's go back to how it all happened:
David calls me and invites me to go to the Yacht show in Miami Beach. Sure! Sounds like fun, I can pretend to be a multi millionaire and be yacht searching.We go to the yacht show, we drink wine, eat caviar, munch on fine cheeses, and top it all off with some Bacardi. As we are walking around, we see a BEAUTIFUL yacht for sale, we walk in and take a tour. Inside the yacht, there is a sales person, getting people to sign up to go see multi million dollar homes in the Bahamas-- but you must meet a criteria:

- household income must be over: $75,000 (D and I combined.. CHECK)
- Must be married (we lied and said we were engaged)
- Must have lived together for over 3 years (we lied again)
- Must pay $100 in port taxes (CHECK)

 They harass D for a good week, asking him what days we are available to fly (this is a 3 day trip, all paid for by them). We give them 4 weekend dates -- They agree to fly us on one of the dates, and we are all set!

Thank you unknown company, we are off to the Bahamas!

We leave on a Friday morning out of West Palm Beach, David gives me a fake diamond to wear on my left hand (remember we are engaged)

on the jet. see you soon Bahamas!

We arrive on a small Island, where immigration is in a hut. It is BEAUTIFUL. When we get to the property we are greeted by lovely staff and set up in a beautiful villa, with views to the garden and the pool.

 us.

villa.

huge room, with kitchen and ample living space.

As soon as we drop off our bags, we are told to go on the property tour (the one they are trying to sell David)

We agree, it's early, we might as well get it out of the way. We arrive to the site of the soon to be multi million dollar home.

This is it. all gravel. and a man made lake. WTF? We look interested, ask many questions, walk around, and tell Chris (the guy showing us the non property) that we will "think about it" but that we have a property in Panama that we really like, and is already built and is bigger than the one they are building here-- this is all a lie. We are poor. We have no property anywhere.

:/

The tour is over, and we don't have to lie anymore. We spend the rest of our trip buying champagne bottles and tanning at the beach. Except one night, where we had the GREAT idea to go into town and go to a locals bar.

We get there and realize... we are not locals. CLEARLY. As soon as we walk in, people start asking us MANY questions, especially where we are staying, since we have traveled over 30 min in a taxi to get to this small, unknown bar.

I look beyond the counter and notice a red bull fridge and ask if they have vodka. They say yes, they have never heard of this drink!

I pull out $80.00, and BUY THE ENTIRE BAR drinks.

We are now every one's best friend!

The music gets louder, the drinks get poured, the dancing starts! We spend the rest of our night at this bar, making friends, and buying all the Bahamians red bull vodka. About $150 dollars later, we are the town hero's.

The next morning I could not believe what i had done. But, I will say, it was the best time EVER.

The next day, we made more friends at the beach, and invited them all to drinks (some were under age, but who cares? it's the Bahamas!)

Like all good things, this trip too had to come to an end.

But, I suggest, if you ever get offered the chance to go see multi million dollar homes for free - take it!

The difference between a dinghy and a boat. And certain weight limitations.

This past weekend I was in Key Largo with some friends, and was taken to Hog Heaven for lunch. I hadn't been there in a while.. about 3 years actually --  as we started driving in is when I started thinking about this story...

It was mid summer, and again, D and I were taking one of our regular trips to key largo to go boating, drinking, pooling, relaxing...

After all the trips to the keys we have taken, you would think one of us would have bought a boat by now... but negative... every time we go, we rent a boat. It comes out pretty affordable, and we get to use it for at least 4 hours... so it's not a bad deal.


This particular weekend was a holiday weekend. All boats according to D were rented and booked, but he had a "hook up" and he had secured a lovely vessel for us for the day.

I'm excited. We pack a cooler full of beer, Smirnoff ice, and 2 subway subs. We will spend the day at the sandbar like we usually do, chit chatting and burning in the sun.

As we get to the marina, we walk outside by he boat slips, and I notice there are no boats in sight. I don't mention anything, because I am known to jump the gun. The guy renting the boat asks for 80.00.

WOW $80.00! That's great! I can't believe this guy is giving us a boat for 80.00 on a holiday weekend! David sure does have the hook up!

David hands the guy his credit card, and tells the guy we are going to the car to get the cooler. The guy puts a confused face and asks: Cooler?

yes, a cooler. with beer. and food.

The guy asks: How big is the cooler.

We respond: regular size.

We drag it to the marina so that the guy can see it.

The guy looks confused.


He points at a 6 foot dinghy and asks: Do you think that fits there? ("boat" looked like this)

I want to DIE.

Have you seen how big we are? We do not FIT on this "boat"!! Nor does the cooler.

We will not leave the cooler behind.

The cooler goes on the boat first.

we are left with no space.

We get on the boat carefully so that it does not POP or TIP OVER... we get on, and sit, with our LEGS
hanging off the sides! (not as comfortably as this couple shown here)

We decide we will take the boat out to the sandbar, but stay FAR FAR away from people so they cannot see us and our embarrassing dinghy. We clearly don;t fit on this thing! I can't believe the man even rented this thing to us! Aren't there certain weight limitations on this thing?

It takes us almost an hour to get to the sandbar. On a REGULAR boat, you can get there in 15 min!

-- We get there--- we anchor the raft with our plastic anchor. we are alone. Far away from society. Then, out of nowhere, a huge Sea Vee boat pulls up next to us. A man, his wife and 2 children jump off and start playing -- they strike up a conversation with us (of course). 

He tells us he's the OWNER of Sea Vee Boats (great). He asks where our boat is. Yes... because he clearly cannot fathom we came on a dinghy and that we both fit on the raft he's looking at.

We tell him our yacht is at the sandbar, but that we wanted some peace from the crazy party at the sandbar and took our dinghy out - away from  the people for peace. He believes us.

<<sigh>> The guy ended up being really nice, and we did our good deed -- his boat got stuck in the sand when the tide changed and we helped him push it out. he offered us a ride to our Yacht. We declined. We waited a good 20 minutes after they left, for us to leave back to the marina, in case he saw us in the open seas on our raft. 

Honestly, we could have rowed to the marina faster than the motor on this boat.

Ever since this day, I ALWAYS ask D to tell me the SIZE of the boat we are going on to NEVER experience this embarrassment again. It was horrible.