Wisconsin Couple Wins Dear Santa Promo

A couple from Wisconsin was the lucky winners of a Bahamas Ministry of Tourism sweepstakes that landed them at the newly built Sandpiper Inn at Schooner Bay Harbour Village, South Abaco from February 6-9.

Sandpiper Inn, owned by radiologist at Doctors Hospital Dr. Keenan Carroll is a uniquely designed full service inn and restaurant with breathtaking views of its surrounding harbor.

The inn is a lovely two-and-half storey traditional Bahamian verandah house with wrap verandahs on two levels and an attic floor dormer porch, all accompanied by two tidy duplex cottages at the rear.

The entry period for the competition held by BMOT was December 1st-15th and the voting period was December 15th-December 20th.

The decision was announced on Christmas Day.

Kathy and Brad Kaufman beat out 48 entries to be the winners of the competition after Brad shared a photo of his wife visiting Cat Island during her courageous battle with breast cancer.

The couple said they were relieved to arrive in Abaco.

“I feel really great that this has happened because we had a really bad year,” Ms. Kaufman said.

“For New Years, we decided to put all the bad things behind us and here we are. We are thankful to everyone at the ministry for giving us our vitamin ‘sea’. Even if we don’t get to do a lot it is nice to be here.”

Mr. Kaufman said it didn’t take him long to write the letter, but the hardest part was keeping it a secret from his wife.

“She didn’t know I wrote the letter until the very last day of voting. I was so sad she found out because I wanted it to be a total surprise. I was very happy when we won,” he said.

“It was great. The people are so friendly. We slept great, the shower was magnificent, the food is delicious. Everyone is friendly and accommodating.”

The Sand Piper Inn opened on Boxing Day 2014.

Dr. Carroll said it was always his dream of owning an inn. 

“We have a beautiful harbor, the birds, the turtles and everything you want to realize. For those who come to enjoy this place, you don’t want to leave. It’s truly unplugged. There are no TVs in the rooms. It’s truly somewhere to come and observe and see what God can do for you as far as refreshing you and seeing that this is the beauty that we have in The Bahamas that we don’t actually realize have,” he said.

“When construction happened sandpipers were walking through the building. I think it was truly ordained by God because when the building started two sandpipers put their footprints in the cement. Two days in Sandpiper Inn is like two weeks vacation just God, the birds and the waves.”