An Island Paradise

If you haven’t lived on a boat for three months in the Bahama out islands, it would be hard to fathom the excitement we feel when we encounter hot showers, a clean laundromat, great food provisioning and a good haircut!

We’ve had all of these over the past four days on Eleuthera – heaven! Our first stop at the Cape Eleuthera Marina provided the first two, and we’ve experienced the others as we explored several small settlements up the coast towards Spanish Wells.

At Rock Sound International Airport, we had to wait an hour for the immigration officer to attend to updating our visas, so we took a walk and found a wonderful beauty parlour where I had a haircut that rivals any I’ve had in Toronto. Then we dinghied to the best grocery store we’ve seen in the Bahamas (we think the proximity to Nassau is responsible for that).

The next day we motored in the rain, with no wind, to Governor’s Harbour where we found a lovely community with two good grocery stores, a gift shop and a great hardware store – Jeff was delighted. This morning, as we were preparing to leave, there were dozens of jellyfish swimming around the boat, right at the surface. We’d never seen them live anywhere but in an aquarium before. I think we even saw a couple of small squid.

But the best so far is our current stop – a tiny harbour called Pitman Cove. We’re the only boat anchored here, in 5 feet of water. As we arrived, we noticed fishermen cleaning their catch onshore, so we raced over in the dinghy, and bought fresh red snapper filets for dinner. Then we ordered conch salad from a near-by stand, and bought a whole coconut from the truck beside it for drinks. What an amazing lunch – all to the accompaniment of non-stop Reggae music!

Everyone we spoke to welcomed us like family, and invited us to the party tonight to celebrate the town’s victory as winners of the Eleuthera Junkanoo (like Brazil’s Carnivale). We then wandered the charming little settlement with a lovely old church, nice-looking houses and a surprising number of stores for such a small place. No sign of poverty here – we may spend two days in this lovely cove before we challenge the difficult cut to get to Spanish Wells. This really feels like we’re immersed in true Bahamian culture.