It’s New Years Eve! Just like that, it’s the last day of 2021.

And I’m going on vacation. To the Bahamas. There are nearly 700 islands in the Bahamas, and I’m going to one Great Abaco Island, though the airport we landed in was actually on Marsh Island? Our friends were kind enough to invite us to spend NYE with them. I’m looking forward to a change of scenery, after having spent most of the year in a bearrito.

Here’s the view from outside the plane as we’re getting ready to approach.

Our destination today is the Abaco Club. It’s a private club with a nice long fine white sand beach. Abaco Club’s had an interesting history with multiple owners. For the longest time it sat underdeveloped through multiple recessions, but the current owners seem to be putting a lot of effort into growing the community.

As we disembarked from the airport though, we were first greeted with giant swarths of dead trees. At first we thought maybe they were just dormant from winter, but it turns out this is the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 hurricane that struck Abaco Islands Directly on Sept 1, 2019. While the hurricane itself inflicted a lot of damage, it was the resulting flooding that left the soils too salty for trees to survive.

While most of the damage impacted northern Abaco, Abaco Club survived surprisingly unscathed. Much of the area might have been protected by a combination of the Winding Bay, and by Sugar Cay.

After about a 20 minute ride, we pulled up to our friend’s place. There’s a main house and we got to stay in the guest house.

Time to settle in and get ready for New Years Eve!