This year, one of our goals was to go further east and
further south than we had gone before (kind of like the personnel of the Starship Enterprise: we wanted “to go
where no Brown had gone before.”) When we reached Long Island we had succeeded.
We were beyond the Tropic of Cancer; we were in unexplored regions! Long Island
held three adventures for us. Let’s just call them … the Good … the Bad … and
the Ugly.
The Good
 |
| This sign marks the Tropic of Cancer |
Thomson Bay abuts the settlement of Salt Pond, which is
almost exactly half way down the island. That’s important because the southern
half, everything below Salt Pond, was devastated by last year’s Hurricane Joaquin.
Many of the cruisers in Thompson’s Bay are frequent and long time visitors to
Long Island and, while we were there, had one or more projects on-going to
assist in the island’s recovery. I will say – even though I probably shouldn’t
– that the cruisers seemed to be doing more for the island’s infrastructure
than the local residents were. Jus’ sayin’.
Long Island is … well … long. It is about 80 miles long and
4 miles wide at its widest point. It is about 230 sq mi. in area and
it is located 165 miles southeast of Nassau. The Tropic of Cancer runs through
the northern quarter of the island. Its original inhabitants, the Lucayan
Indians, called it “Yuma.” Most historians and archaeologists believe that
Columbus visited the island on his first voyage (1492) after stopping at San
Salvador and Rum Cay. It was then that he rechristened the island “Fernandina”
after King Ferdinand. After the Spanish rounded up all the Lucayans and took
them to Hispaniola
and Cuba
to serve as slaves, there was no large settlement of anyone until the arrival
of the Loyalists during and after
the American Revolution.
The original Loyalists were mainly from New England and New Jersey arrived on Long Island after fleeing the American Revolution. These families started the first farms, raising primarily cattle and sheep. By the 1790s, settlers began to arrive from the Carolinas and proceeded to set up cotton plantations. The plantations flourished for only a few years and, by the time of the abolition of slavery in the Bahamas in 1834, most had collapsed and been abandoned. There are many ruins from this era today, none of which have been taken care of, and the majority are overgrown by bush.
Friends had suggested that the best way to see the island
was to rent a car for two days. On day one, they suggested, we go south and on
day two, north -- that way we would be able to see most of the island in the
most efficient way possible. We rented a car and headed south. There were three
highlights to the trip south.
The first was a 16th century Spanish mission.
Now, in the States, if there were a 16th century church there would
be signs pointing to it off the highway, signs explaining what you were seeing
and either the local Catholic Church or a volunteer association would raise
money for the site. In the Bahamas, by contrast, you have to keep your eyes
open as you drive down the highway, otherwise you would miss what looks like a
derelict building just off the only highway on the island. I have no doubt that
a serious archeological effort could lead to some interesting results, but I am
not sure one has ever been attempted and there are few signs that anyone is
seriously interested. The second highlight on our trip south was “Dean’s Blue
Hole.” Dean’s is a 600 feet deep hole in the island that is filled with sea
water. It is about twice as deep as most other blue holes in the Bahamas and
elsewhere. Dean’s is famous as the location of several free-diving world
records and was the host of the 2009 free-diving championships. It is really
kind of cool! The third highlight was the Flying Fish Marina in Clarence Town.
It was modern, had a really good bar and grill attached, and looked to be a
first class marina
 |
| Sixteenth century Spanish mission located on the side of the road. |
After Clarence Town, however, it did not look as if there
was going to be much to see further south. So, while we drove another thirty or
so miles, we eventually turned around and headed north. Although our goal was
to see the Columbus monument at the northern tip of the island (about which,
more later) we only went as far as the Tomb and grave marker of Louisa Morris,
the daughter of John Morris, plantation owner and slave holder in the late 19th
Century. The grave marker had apparently been stolen in 1999, but since then
had been returned to the Bahamas. The Bahamian government built a nice little
monument to the Morris’, though it is way back in the bush!
 |
| This is Dean's Blue Hole. At the swimming platform, it goes 600 feet straight down. |
By this time we were kind of getting tired of driving and
headed back to Salt Pond to turn the car back in.
The Bad
You may recall that we had been having trouble with our
watermaker for several weeks. After I replaced the membrane at Staniel Cay, it
worked fine. While Dave and Joan were visiting it worked okay initially, but
after a week or so, it started misbehaving again; it would run for about an
hour, then turn off. We could still produce water, it was just a slower
process. As time went on, though, the length of time between failures constantly
decreased. By the time we got to Thompson Bay, it was only running for about
ten minutes before the alarm went off and we had to turn it off. Hmmmm. This
was not good.
We decided we would go to the nearest marina, Stella Maris Marina in northern Long
Island. There, I would take apart the watermaker to see if I could fix it. (I
wasn’t overly hopeful, but I had replaced the membrane – and maybe, just maybe,
I hadn’t replaced all the fittings correctly. If that were the case, I might,
indeed, be able to repair it). Even if we couldn’t get it fixed, we figured, we
could fill up with water at the marina and then decide what to do.
 |
| Spot pointing out an error I was making in Watermaker repair |
When I was in the Army there were times when we would get a
couple of quarts of water per day – and it was for drinking only. You could use
it for teeth-brushing or shaving if you had to, but that came out of your
drinking stock. We didn’t shower and didn’t wash our clothes. We ate out of
cans and licked our plastic spoons clean. We seldom cooked anything with water
and certainly didn’t have ice for happy hour. In short, I know how little water
a person really needs. We also know that there are some purist sailors who guard
their water almost as jealously as infantrymen. They bathe and wash dishes in
salt water and use fresh water for cooking only when necessary. Given all this,
I know that it is absolutely true that if you put your mind to it, are willing
to stink to high heaven, to taste salt in everything, to eat out of cans and
never to wash your clothes, that you can save enormous amounts of water.
However, I am now just a little older than I was in my twenties and am used to
a certain style of living, e.g. occasional showers, plenty of drinking water,
well-cooked meals, clean dishes and, oh yea, ice for my 5 PM cocktails.
Still, Ann and I are pretty good at rationing water and can
easily live – and live well – with twenty gallons per day and even less of we
had to. However, at Stella Maris we had only about 75 gallons in our tanks (our
tanks can carry about 200). Moreover, there are very few marinas in the outer islands of the Bahamas. So, while we
could certainly explore the rest of the islands we wanted to see, we would be
constantly tethered to some very specific marinas – those that had good water.
So, we decided that our broken watermaker was a sign that we should turn back –
so we did.
From Stella Maris we headed north to Cape Santa Maria (which
has a beautiful resort and beach, by the way), then back to Emerald Bay Marina
to get some water and to wait for a weather window so we could go north and
start the trip back to the good old USA. After Emerald bay, we stopped at White
Point, Black Point, Norman Cay and Highbourne. It was on this trip, from Emerald Bay to White Point that we caught a Black Fin Tuna! It was only about 14-15 inches long (about two meals) and was relatively easy to clean. I will say, however, that we are still struggling with a good recipe for black fin. Anyway, we stopped at White Point and most of the other
islands to wait for weather so we could make the next leg of the journey, but
we stopped at Highbourne because of the restaurant. It is as good as I
remembered!
 |
| A blackfin tuna. |
We have, of course, run the boat in the dark many times in
the past. Nevertheless, it constantly amazes me how different night boating is
from day boating. The night before we took off, I had examined the sea closely
and there was nothing surprising; everything was on the charts and on the
radar. Shortly after we left, however, at about 0400, I was sure I saw some
lights about a mile out. What were they coming from? Was there a marker I had
overlooked? Even worse, could there have been a shallow area close to our
proposed route? I turned the boat to make sure we would not come close to
whatever was out there and proceeded very cautiously. In the event, there were
lights out there, but there were not a mile out, they were about five miles
out; they were not buoys or markers, they were from another boat. Oh well, it
was a little nerve-wracking, but not at all dangerous.
 |
| Mahi Number Two! |
We then hit the open ocean and eventually the Gulf Stream.
The stream propelled us 2 ½ to 3 knots faster than we would otherwise had gone.
We arrived at Old Port Cove Marina at 1430, had a beer to celebrate the end of
this Bahamian Adventure and our return to the land of the free and the home of
the brave!
Then, we started planning the trip northward on the
Intracoastal Waterway.
The Ugly
Actually, there was no ugly … it just sounds so much better
than saying there was good and bad J
