Eleuthera Island, Bahamas

Eleuthera was a pleasant surprise with great little harbour’s to anchor in and a real community atmosphere in each of the towns. This island had more people than we have seen in such a long time (from none to some anyway). Every place we went to had something going on and music into the wee hours of the morn. As one of the locals in one town said to us “there’s a party nearly every night”. You better believe it, each community had something to celebrate and music playing somewhere. Maybe Easter celebrations had some part in the activities about but I don’t think so.

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We entered at the Southern end of the island stopping in Rock Sound first. The folding bikes came out and we cycled about the town and over the hill to see the Atlantic Ocean making sure to stop at the big attraction in the centre of town; the Ocean Hole. You could see the local kids swimming in this great spot. Kids were feeding the fish that were in the hole. Rock Sound had a 5 day party for Homecoming where we enjoyed some local food and for one of us light sleepers heard the music till 3am!
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On the pier at Tarpum Bay the locals invited us to join them for beer and fried fish for lunch. It was actually very relaxing sitting around hearing their stories of how they had come to the island and what they did. They said they don’t get a lot of cruisers anchoring because of how shallow the water in their harbour is. We wandered the streets and people waved out and said hello. The town actually looked like it had had a lot of damage from past hurricanes where houses had not been repaired etc. This one house stood out as it had been rebuilt using the castle as its foundation and looked a little on the strange side.
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Tarpum seemed like a sleepy little place but alas, no, the music started about 9:30pm and went for hours. Once things cool down they obviously come out to play.

Governors Harbor was the first capital of the Bahamas and you could see that some money had been invested here in the past and even more recently via tourism. The walk over to see this beautiful pink beach on the Atlantic side passed a lot of fancy colonial style homes both old and new. There were a lot of historical buildings in town from the late 1800s. The pink building below is now used as a library, Est. 1897.
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At Hatchet Bay, we entered via a small cut in the rocks and found a very sheltered bay that was tucked away. Again the bikes came out and we cycled 10 miles to the Glass Window Bridge a very impressive bridge where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Exuma Sound creating a window under the bridge to each side. The original bridge was a natural arch that had worn into the rock, but had been destroyed by a hurricane. Very picturesque. It was a long hot ride but believe it or not we both felt good once we were back.
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Spanish Wells is a big fishing town. We decided to anchor off some islands near town that the locals also seemed to enjoy as Spanish Wells was a busy place. Most of the locals drive golf carts to get about so of course we had to rent a golf cart to see town, finishing up at the Shipyard for lunch with some other Canadians.
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We navigated our way around the coral heads of Devils Backbone to Harbour Island, which is a lot more touristy. We saw the local Junkanoo band perform in the restaurant we were in, went to the Pink Sand beach and wandered about town. Nice place.

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Jankanoo originated during the days of slavery when the slaves were given time off to celebrate the holidays with African dance, music and costume. They dance to cowbells, horns, whistles and goat skinned drums.

The Pink sand beach is tinted by crushed coral and seas shells and was powder-soft to walk on. it was amazing there just were not the people about yet it was so beautiful and the water a nice temperature.

P1060026P1060038In the Bahamas the locals gather up the fishing floats that wash up on the beaches and decorate their trees, turn them into planters and do carvings into them.

P1060014P1050992Heading to the Abaco Islands, which are still part of the Bahamas.