Remember These Shores

Good-bye Bahamas. We had a blast. Gorgeous beaches, friendly people, warm climate, and a rum punch or two. We will miss you.

Our Bahamian experience was not totally what we expected, though. Aside from our boat issues, for which the Bahamas cannot be blamed, there were some cultural and geographical dissonances that we did not foresee. For instance, our imagined vision of the Bahamas included lots of palm trees, fronds swaying in the breeze, lining white sand beaches lapped by beautiful blue water. The water was certainly a beautiful shade of aqua, but the palm trees appeared to be imported. We really only saw them clumped around resorts and populated areas. The wild, uninhabited islands had only scrub pines and mangroves, beautiful in their way, but somewhat barren compared to our tropical fantasy.

There were other things that surprised us too, like the weird, almost complete lack of birds. No seagulls, pelicans, or herons, although we did see two or three egrets, and every once in a while, a tern. We’ve been told that there are birds, but they seem to be land birds, so while on the boat we couldn’t see them.

We had both been looking forward to visiting those out-of-the-way islands, finding ourselves alone on an unspoiled island landscape. Never having made it far south to the more isolated islands of the Exumas, we can’t really make a judgment about the whole of the Bahamas. But all of the islands we did visit were plagued with trash. Possibly left there by other boaters, most of it probably washed up on shore from garbage dumps out in the open ocean, the beaches we visited were laden with plastic items; bottles, buckets and other containers. Totally aside from how the sight of all that junk detracted from our aesthetic experience, it was distressing and disappointing to see the direct and ugly consequences of human disregard for our natural environment.

 

Plastic Trash on Great Sale Cay

The weather was also somewhat of a surprise. While it was warm most of the time, there were only a few days that could be called “hot”, and while that is not necessarily a bad thing, there were probably as many days of long sleeves as there were great swimming days. I actually enjoyed this because I could more comfortably cover up from the sun. But it wasn’t what we expected.

Culturally, we had a few instances of disconnect and miscommunication with the locals. The laid-back, “island time” sensibility in the Bahamas is no mere myth, and even though we tried hard to not be ugly American tourists, expecting things to run the way they do back home, we didn’t always succeed. For instance, I had to take a couple of flights home to Baltimore during our Bahamas stay, and after arriving at the tiny airport, I noticed that my flight was listed as “Departed” on the TV monitor. I started to panic because I wasn’t due to leave for another hour. When I rushed over to ask one of the airline attendants about it, she replied, laughing, “Oh, don’t pay any attention to those monitors!”

Another time, while trying to order food at a restaurant counter in Nassau, we carefully looked over their extensive menu displayed on the wall. There was also a list of “Specials” written on a small easel on the counter. We chose one of the specials, but were told that particular dish wasn’t available that day. We chose another of the specials, but again, not available. After a couple more tries, I finally asked what was available. Out of that whole menu, only three items were being served that day, none of them on the “Specials” board. We looked at the people behind the counter in disbelief. They looked at us the same way. We ordered the three things that were available, and even though we clearly didn’t understand the protocol, the meal was delicious.

So what did we like the most about the Bahamas? Rick will miss the swimming, snorkeling and walks on the beach. He loved the extravagantly billowy Caribbean clouds, so different from the often ill-defined smudges so often overhead in Baltimore. I couldn’t get enough of the brilliant aqua-blue water, almost always clear to the bottom, and would sit staring at it for hours. I fell in love with the pastel colored houses, and the big-hearted friendliness of the people. Our stay may not have been completely what we expected, but we still had the time of our lives.

We spent our last week moving steadily up the long arc of the Abaco Islands, stopping at Treasure Cay, Green Turtle Cay, and then the uninhabited Powell and Great Sale Cays before making the hundred-twenty-mile overnight crossing over to Florida and rejoining the ICW. Baltimore, here we come.