Labour of Love - Visitor adds to beauty in Tranquility Bay

First time visitors to Eleuthera, Tim and Loretta Cwalinski of Michigan, USA, had saved up for their trip to Eleuthera which they took at the end of March into the first week of April for one week. What these visitors accomplished, very much deserves to be highlighted, especially, as April is Coastal Awareness Month on the island.

While walking the beach behind their rental cottage in the Tranquility Bay area on the Atlantic side, the vacationing couple saw trash, which appeared to be from passing ships, washed ashore on the beach.  Both Loretta and Tim work for the Department of Natural Resources in the USA - he is a Fisheries Biologist and she is a Secretary for the Forest Management Division and true to their nature they began gathering the trash. "That’s my nature, first I started piling it, then I said to myself, I can’t just leave it there.  So as much as I could, I got some garbage bags and hauled it up.  This is a beautiful island, and it was done out of respect for it”, Mrs. Cwalinski said.

Eleuthera Sunset as photographed by Mr. &  Mrs.  Cwalinski

When the couple left Michigan, it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit and they were surrounded by snow.  So Eleuthera was a totally different environment for them.  During their week’s stay they stopped into the local Ministry of Tourism office with several unrelated questions – however, the subject of recycling facilities came up in the conversation in relation to the trash that had been gathered with Loretta describing her cleaning up activities during the week.

Loretta remembers her parents having eight millimeter footage of when she was just a kid, picking up trash happily and she says, “I’m big into recycling back home, and can’t stand to throw stuff away.  It was just the way I was raised. We need to be more conscientious of things like that.”

As she recounted her story to The Eleutheran, Loretta commented, “It’s been a full week.  Back home, I sit at the computer for most of the day, and it’s not what I like to do, I’ve found that I like physical activity more and that’s what brings me happiness. I like to keep busy.  I don’t wear myself out anymore... but here it’s been an awesome vacation, just working hard. It took us a while to save up to get here, and it was worth it. Loved it, loved it, and I’d love to actually come back.”

 Loretta Cwalinski  stands next to pile of collected material.