Port Lucaya is not the most exciting vacation destination, but if you’re only traveling short haul and your family is weird enough it can be a blast. I’ve traveled to far more exotic and glamorous places on my own, but some of my fondest memories are from family vacations.

We visited the Bahamas in the late 90s when my father and his wife owned a small cabin cruiser. They belonged to the “Sea Ray Expedition Club” and took me along on their second trip with the group. We departed from Ft. Lauderdale and, in an orderly row, followed each other in a boat-chain. We arrived at the Port Lucaya Marina on Grand Bahama Island approximately two and a half hours later and pulled out the veggies and burgers to grill while we waited to clear customs.

Normally this would be a non-event, except that I forgot my passport, wallet and ALL forms of identification. My step-mother and struggled not to laugh as my father nervously explained to the customs official that my passport had gotten lost en route. The customs official seemed as amused by my dad’s nervous blubbering as we were, so he excused my lack of identification and left us marveling at what could have been a serious problem.

My passport fandango kicked off a string of hilarious bad luck. On our brief three day visit to the Bahamas two members of our traveling party fell off their boats and lost their glasses, another fell out of a dinghy on the brief trip from the harbor to the beach, and my father lost all of his money and credit cards which he stupidly kept in a plastic bag in his swim trunks. (A kindly local gave it back to him when the wad of cash and plastic washed up on shore an hour later) To add insult to injury a tropical storm precluded taking the boat home to Florida and we all needed to fly home.

Regardless, it was our favorite family vacation that we've ever taken. A long weekend on white sand beaches drinking plenty of rum is a great time, especially when your family's antics are straight out of the Keystone Cops.