Well it’s Monday morning, I’m sitting in beautiful sunshine on the lower terrace looking over the ocean wondering about another quiet day in paradise. The major decisions of the day will probably be where to go for morning coffee and shall we lunch at Lucianos or Cafe Matisse. But mind you it’s not always this quiet.....


To start at the beginning you need to know that since we have been out here in the Bahamas our sleeping pattern has gone to pot. The effect of the time difference and the constant heat draining our energy has resulted in us being unable to keep away much later than 9.30 each night. In fact we have often gone to bed at the same time as the kids which is OK except that we are then up at 5.00am the next morning. So we have been making big efforts to stay up later.


Saturday night we achieved our goal we were up till 11.00pm and went off to bed confident that we could have a good nights sleep and get up at a normal time.


So what happens. At 5.00am I wake up to the sound of voices, is something wrong? Is it the kids? What’s going on? Is Alex and Dave having a domestic? There a lot of shouting and then I realise the voices are outside so half asleep I pull up the blinds and open the shutters and what do you know it seems like the entire Bahamian Police Force is in the front street surrounding Alex and Dave’s house. I rub my eyes and look again and yes the police are still there.








What could it be, terrorists perhaps but not out here I don’t believe anyone here could be bothered or drugs maybe, that seems more likely. Then I see that they are searching the grounds of all the houses so I decide it must be an escaped prisoner. So I get up, put all the outside lights on and go out onto the back terrace and see more police in the fields at both sides of the house, I walk out a little further and can you believe it a pirate ship has appeared overnight and has been parked outside our house, perhaps it's a remake of Pirates of the Caribean. But I quickly understand from the police that it obviously isn’t a pirate ship but a boat load of Haitians who have either all decided to come on holiday together or are trying to get into the country illegally. Estimates suggest that somewhere between 100 and 150 Haitians will have spent up to week on this boat getting here.


So we have maybe a hundred Haitians running in all directions being chased by the Bahamian Police Force. There are buses being brought up to hold the ones the police catch, helicopters flying around, police launches moored up to the pirate ship and police sirens going off everywhere. Every dog in the neighbourhood is barking his head off, that is all except for Lucky, Alex and Dave’s guard dog who barked once and then in true Bahamian fashion decided it was all too much and turned round and went back to sleep.








All this was followed by a steady stream of sightseers coming to view our pirate ship which now seems to have been abandoned and will probably stay here until it breaks up. In the meantime it makes for a talking point whilst having a vodka and cranberry juice on the upper terrace. And this is only three weeks since we were inundated with the paparazzi trying to get photos of Anna Nicole Smith who has just moved into the house opposite.


What’s the world coming to I expected a quiet break. Tickton will seem very quiet when we get back.