Surfboard, yes. Snorkel and scuba for sure. Sunbathing, swimming - definitely. But snowboarding? Water-skiing is probably about as close to a winter activity as one can get in the Caribbean tropics.
However, for World Cup halfpipe rider Korath Wright a snowboard was exactly the ticket that led him back to the country of his birth.
Wright is competing for the Bahamas at this weekend's FIS World Cup halfpipe event at Cardrona Alpine Resort.
He is flying the aquamarine blue, yellow, and black triangle of the Bahamas for the first time on the world snowsports stage, riding a snowboard covered with the well-wishing signatures of his countrymen.
The irony of snowboarding for a tropical island paradise is not lost on Wright. He has become used to comparisons with the Jamaican bobsledding team that represented the Caribbean country at the Winter Olympics in 1988 and became the subject of the cult comedy film Cool Runnings.
"Yeah, I guess I have to take all that in my stride. It's pretty funny," he says.
His laid-back response is one that typifies the Bahamian islanders and their attitude to life - an attitude Wright says he has always had, but which he never realised was part of his Bahamian heritage until he visited his country of birth.
"I've always lived life at a little bit of a slower pace than everyone else and until I went back to the Bahamas I never really understood why. But, everyone there is like, so laid back. I'm kinda the speedy one," he says.
Wright's Bahamian homecoming started a journey which he hopes will culminate in the realisation of a goal to win gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver - his adopted city of residence. However, the path to becoming the Bahamas' first Winter olympian is one that has also paved the way to discover his family roots.
Wright was approached in 2005 by the Bahamas High Commission in Canada as to whether he would ride for his home country, after he gained third place in a World Cup halfpipe event at Whistler, BC.
The podium placing and subsequent announcement that he would represent the islands nation he had left aged 1, when his mother returned to her home country of Canada, became big news in the Bahamas.
On Christmas Eve 2005, he got a phone call from out of the blue. It was his father, who had recognised the snowboarder, as the son he had not seen in almost 20 years.
The pair talked for hours and the phone was passed to relative after relative as Wright learnt of the Bahamian-based family he had never known.
Wright was joined by his family at a beachside reception, where a traditional junkanoo band played, government officials lined up to shake his hand, and members of the Bahamas Olympian Association welcomed him into the fold.
The event was attended by hundreds of supporters, who emblazoned Wright's Bahamian flag snowboard with their signatures and messages of support.
The World Cup in Cardrona this weekend is his first official event and debut as a Bahamian sporting representative and island eyes are watching for his results.
Wright is not here to make up the numbers and his bid for Olympic gold is no long shot. Before switching allegiance back to his home country he was a member of the Canadian Snowboard Team and still travels and trains with his former team-mates.
He has spent the past three years training and perfecting his halfpipe runs as he eyes up the Olympics.
Qualification for the Vancouver Games begins in earnest in January, next year, in the first of 10 World Cup halfpipe events leading into the 2010 Winter Olympics.
If Wright can earn enough points to be ranked in the top 40, he is guaranteed of representing his home country, in the city where he has lived most of his life.
"It's great to know I have the support of a whole country behind me," he says.
A country, which in two years time, will be hoping he brings home a medal around his neck as golden as the sun-soaked Bahamian beaches.
• Korath Wright
Bahamian snowboarder
Age: 23
- Born to Canadian mother and Bahamian father.
- Returned to Canada shortly after his birth and began snowboarding aged 10.
- Was approached in 2005 by the Bahamas High Commission in Canada to represent his birth country after he earned third place in a World Cup halfpipe event.
- The Bahamas is comprised of a chain of 700 islands and located off the Florida coast of the United States and above Cuba.
- Famous Bahamians include rock star Lenny Kravitz and actor Sydney Poitier.
- The country has a population of 300,549 spread across the country's 14 main inhabited islands.
- The Bahamas has won 10 medals at the Summer Olympics, which it has attended since 1956, in Tokyo (1964), Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004).
