While we were eating lunch, the owner of the hotel, a British man, came to say hello. He was thrilled to see us, especially when he found out we were staying for ten days. He proceeded to tell us a few facts about the island—how, unlike other Bahamians, the inhabitants of Spanish Wells are all white, and how they work six months out of the year catching lobster, earning at least $100,000 per year. This did explain the number of satellite dishes we had seen on our walk.

I asked the owner what he did before he moved to Spanish Wells. “Well,” he said, “I worked somewhere you have never heard of.”

That’s what I say whenever anybody asks me where I was born.

“Where is that?” I asked him.

“Abadan, Iran,” he said.

I had to hold myself back from an a cappella rendition of “It’s a Small World.” It turns out not only did this man live in Abadan, he worked at the same company as my father, the National Iranian Oil Company. He knew my old neighborhood, the local clubhouse, and Alfi’s, the general store where I bought all my tea sets.

After lunch, we set out for a walk along the shore. Big, heavy conch shells littered the beach. “I know what I’m bringing back from this trip!” I told François. “Just so you know,” he said. “You collect it, you carry it home.”

We saw no other tourists on the island. François spent his days reading murder mysteries while I schemed of ways to bring back my growing conch shell collection. Taking breaks from doing nothing, we went on long walks, discovering such unusual sights as a drug plane that had crashed years ago on its way from Colombia. Unfamiliar with the nuances of the cocaine trade, we had no idea that it was a drug plane when we first saw it. That evening, we were enlightened about its unique history by our receptionist-bellhop-waitress-historian. Later, we returned to take pictures in front of its hollowed interior where the bags of cocaine had been stored. This was a classic example of travel brochures leaving out the best tidbits.

During our walks, we also discovered the Pinder Restaurant, the Pinder Bakery, and the Pinder Gas Station. Back at the hotel, we asked the owner why most of the businesses were called Pinder. He took out the island’s phone book. Almost everyone in the book, all twenty pages, was named Pinder. Apparently the island had been settled by two families, the Pinder family and the Pinder family. “And they had kids and made more Pinders,” he added.