Coco Cay

I’m really off my schedule lately and I can’t see it getting any better any time soon. Outdoor gardening is done for the year. I have house plants and cuttings to take care of indoors. I watered the Amaryllis for a March bloom. I’m reading a great gardening book.

I’ll get back to all that after the holidays.

So, here’s the final installment of my vacation. Oh. how I long for warm weather and swaying palms.

When you get off the tender on Coco Cay, you are greeted with a straw market and bright multi-colored buildings. The colored buildings pay homage to the natives brightly colored buildings. Historically, members of the same family painted their homes the same color. It was a sign of family pride. The rest rooms (above) are a whimsical example.

Rocky limestone paths crisscross the center of the islet. Some of the paths are steep with a thick rope strung from tree to tree for a handrail.

About 60 permanent residents maintain the island including a cook, a nurse and an engineer. The tidy compound is behind this sign.

The remains of an old building purportedly built by slaves in the 1700’s lies next to Blackbeard’s grave.

Edward Teach, also known as the villainous Blackbeard, is said to be buried on Coco Cay. There are Blackbeard stories everywhere from Florida to the Carolinas.

–A rather gruesome tale states that Blackbeard was killed in Beaufort Inlet in North Carolina. He was beheaded and his body was thrown in the water. His head was taken to Portsmouth and hung from the top of a large pole as a warning to others. Rumor is that his skull became a ceremonial goblet for a college of William and Mary fraternity.

Any animals on the island were imported.

I only saw two - a 4’ long iguana
and a chicken.
Royal Caribbean’s signature drink, Coco Loco, is served on the beach. It is delicious – a mixture of coconut, pineapple, papaya and banana flavors in an icy slush. “Coco Loco – makes you feel good.”

With temperatures in the teens here, I wish I was sitting on a warm beach with a Coco Loco right now.

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