Bahamas Adventure Guide

Bahamas & Turks & Caicos

4th Edition

Blair Howard & Renate Siekmann

HUNTER PUBLISHING, INC.

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© 2010 Blair Howard and Renate Siekmann

Maps by Kim André & Lissa Dailey, © 2009 Hunter Publishing, Inc.

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Brief extracts to be included in reviews or articles are permitted.

Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this book is correct, but the publisher and authors do not assume, and hereby disclaim, liability to any party for any loss or damage caused by errors, omissions, misleading information or potential problems caused by information in this guide, even if such errors or omissions are a result of negligence, accident or any other cause.

About the Bahamas

Geography

Nassau

Paradise Island

Freeport

Grand Bahama

The Out Islands

History

Early Settlement

Pirates & Privateers

The 19th Century

The Modern Era

Getting There

Before You Go

Travel Documents

Customs

Departure Taxes

Disabled Travelers

The People

Eating & Drinking

Accommodations

Practical Information

Banking

Bicycles & Mopeds

Buses

Casinos

Climate

Currency

Dress

Electricity

Ferries

Internet

Mail Boats

Photography

Medical

Rental Cars

Shopping Hours

Taxis & Tours

Telephones

Time

How to Use This Book

Tourist Information

A Land of Adventure

Bird Watching

Boating

Golf

Hiking & Bicycling

Honeymooning

Horseback Riding

Parasailing

Jet-Skiing

Shelling

Sport Fishing

Marine National Parks

Sightseeing

Snorkeling & Diving

Sun Seeking

Tennis

Water Skiing

Windsurfing

Nightlife

Shopping

Holidays

Nassau & New Providence

History

Getting There

Getting Around

Shopping

The Best Spots

The Straw Market

Sightseeing

The Atlantis Resort & Casino

Beaches

Ardastra Gardens

Pirates of Nassau

The Cloisters

The Water Tower

The Queens Staircase

Pompey Museum

Historical Society Museum

Junkanoo Expo Museum

Changing of the Guard Ceremony

The Retreat

Guided Walking Tours

The Botanical Gardens

Fort Fincastle

Fort Montague

Fort Charlotte

Adventures on Land

Pedal & Paddle Ecoventure

Birding Tours

Golf

Gambling

Adventures on Water

Dolphin Encounters

Hartley's Undersea Walk

Seaworld Explorer Semi-submarine

Sport Fishing

Fishing Charters

Powerboat Adventures

Diving & Snorkeling

Where to Stay & Eat

Dining

Accommodations

Grand Bahama

History

Getting There

Getting Around

Shopping

Sightseeing

Garden of the Groves

Lucayan National Park

Rand Memorial Nature Center

Seaworld Explorer

The Dolphin Experience

Guided Tours

Adventures on Land

Adventures on Water

Where to Stay & Eat

Dining

Accommodations

The Out Islands

The Abacos

History

Getting There

Getting Around

Marsh Harbour

Man-O-War Cay

Elbow Cay & Hope Town

Green Turtle Cay & New Plymouth

Treasure Cay

Great Guana Cay

Walker's Cay

Guided Tours & Sightseeing

Adventures on Water

Where to Stay & Eat

Dining

Accommodations

Elbow Cay

Great Guana Cay

Green Turtle Cay

Man-O-War Cay

Marsh Harbour

Spanish Cay

Treasure Cay

Walker's Cay

Wood Cay

Andros

Geography & Wildlife

History

Getting There

Getting Around

Sightseeing

Where to Stay & Eat

Dining

Accommodations

Bimini

History

Getting There

Adventures on Water

Where to Stay & Eat

Dining

Accommodations

Eleuthera

History

Getting There

Getting Around

Day Trips to Harbour Island

Fishing

Boat Rentals

Diving

Where to Stay & Eat

Dining

Gregory Town

Palmetto Point

Harbour Island

Accommodations

The Exumas

History

Getting There

Getting Around

Nightlife

Adventures

Sea Kayaking & Sailing

Fishing

Powerboat Adventures

Diving & Snorkeling

Where to Stay & Eat

Dining

Accommodations

Other Islands

The Acklins & Crooked Island

History

Getting There

Sightseeing

Dining

The Berry Islands

Getting There

Adventures on Water

Dining

Accommodations

Cat Island

Getting There

Sightseeing

Adventures on Water

Dining

Accommodations

The Inaguas

Getting There

Sightseeing

Inagua National Park

Morton Bahamas Salt Company

Matthew Town Lighthouse

Adventures

Dining

Accommodations

Long Island

History

Getting There

Sightseeing

Adventures on Water

Dining

Accommodations

San Salvador

History

Getting There

Sightseeing

Adventures on Foot

Adventures on Water

Dining

Accommodations

Rum Cay

Turks & Caicos Islands

History

The Islands Today

Getting There

Getting Around

Practical Concerns

Providenciales

The Beaches

Adventures

Dining

Accommodations

Grand Turk

Getting Around

Banking

Information

Cockburn Town

Sightseeing

Adventures

Dining

Accommodations

North Caicos

Getting There

Getting Around

Sightseeing

The Beaches

Dining

Accommodations

Middle Caicos

Getting There

Adventures

Dining

Accommodations

South Caicos

Getting There

Getting Around

Adventures

Dining

Accommodations

At a Glance

Airlines Serving the Islands

Airline Telephone Numbers

Package Operators

Charter Airlines - Florida

Resort Charter Airlines

Getting There

Nassau/New Providence

Freeport/Grand Bahama

Fishing Guides

Dive Operators

Accommodations

About the Bahamas

Geography

The Bahamas lie scattered across more than 100,000 square miles of the western Atlantic Ocean. From a point roughly 70 miles east of West Palm Beach, Florida, the great archipelago extends some 750 miles southward toward the northern Caribbean, almost to the island of Hispaniola.

The islands that make up the Bahamas are generally low and flat. The highest point in the entire archipelago, on Cat Island, is just 206 feet above sea level. Except on Andros, the largest island of the chain, there are no rivers or streams. Apart from New Providence - where fresh water is shipped in daily from Andros, pumped from wells dug into the underlying rocks - fresh water is abundant.

The Bahamas from space

Because the islands are no more than the exposed top portions of the Great Bahama Bank, an extension of the North American continental shelf, there are only three deep-water channels suitable for the passage of large vessels.

Of the 700 islands and 2,000 islets, called cays (keys), making up the archipelago, only about 30 are inhabited. Some are little more than boulders that appear and disappear with the rise and fall of the ocean. Some are long and thin and stretch for many miles. Still others are home to thousands of busy people. The vast majority of the islands, however, are deserted, with pristine beaches and tropical forests that are untouched by humans.

With a total combined land mass of less than 5,400 square miles, the islands of the Bahamas constitute one of the smallest countries in the world.

Tourism has brought prosperity to the Bahamas. But it hasn't spoiled the great natural beauty of the islands. In the early days, as in the coastal boom towns of Florida and California, little attention was given to the damage unrestricted exploitation was inflicting on Nassau and New Providence. Today, there's a new feeling in the islands. A feeling that the unique beauty of the archipelago must be preserved. Conservation is the new watchword of the Bahamas.

Nassau

The largest and best known city in the Bahamas is Nassau. Located on the island of New Providence, it boasts a population of more than 175,000 people. In times gone by, Nassau was an international playground for the rich. Today, the first city of the Bahamas attracts not only the affluent of the world, but vacationers of every class and culture, especially from America. The city has become a tax haven - Nassau has more than 400 banks - and is a popular location for international business conferences and meetings.

Nassau is also a microcosm of the nation's history. Visitors can explore its narrow streets, the old British forts, climb the Queen's Staircase and wander through outlying villages dating back to the days of slavery and beyond.

Throughout the Christmas and New Year's holidays, at the height of the Bahamian tourist season, Junkanoo - a spirited, Mardi Gras-style celebration born of slavery - explodes across the islands, but nowhere is it quite as exciting as in Nassau.

Paradise Island

Paradise Island Bridge

Paradise Island, a long, narrow barrier island connected to Nassau by a toll bridge, is as different from Nassau as Key West is from Miami. While Paradise Island is a world of hotels, restaurants and exciting nightlife, it's also a world still quite unspoiled where you can enjoy the sea and beaches that lie close to the bustling streets of the city.

Freeport

Freeport, on Grand Bahama Island, is the second largest city in the islands. With a steadily growing population, now more than 50,000, Freeport, which adjoins the Lucaya Beach area, is a more modern city than Nassau. The carefully planned, landscaped streets are a product of the sixties, and of the dreams of American entrepreneur and financier, Wallace Groves.

Grand Bahama

Grand Bahama, through the efforts of dedicated individuals and institutions such as the Rand Memorial Nature Center and the Lucayan National Park, has become something of an environmental headquarters for the islands. With its miles of sandy beaches, excellent shopping, two casinos, a dozen or so large hotels, a waterfront district and many restaurants, Grand Bahama is quickly becoming a major vacation destination.

The Out Islands

There's another world beyond those two major tourist destinations: the Out Islands of Abaco, Andros, the Berry Islands, Bimini, Cat Island, Crooked Island, Eleuthera, the Exumas, Harbour Island, Long Island, and so on. The Out Islands have long been a popular destination for sailors, sport fishermen and divers. Today, due to some aggressive marketing and increased accessibility, they are fast becoming popular with other active travelers.

Far away from the bustling streets and tourist attractions of Nassau and Freeport, the rest of the Bahamian population, some 40,000 people, pursue their everyday lives. They live in sparsely settled little towns and villages from one end of the island chain to the other. Most Out Island residents have never left their island.

The little towns and villages are an odd mixture of the old and the new. Here and there across the Out Islands you'll find impressive colonial manor houses right alongside half-finished concrete structures that will one day, as money permits, become the homes of fishermen and farmers.

In the many villages of the outer islands to the southeast, the traditional pattern of farming and fishing prevails. Fruits and vegetables are grown throughout the Out Islands, along with pigs, sheep, goats and turkeys, while crayfish (Bahamian lobster), lumber, and pulpwood are exported, chiefly to the United States.

Thick vegetation, mostly shrubs and bushes, covers most of the Out Islands. Each is a tiny land of dunes and rocks, sea grass, spider lilies, seagrape, mangrove, casuarina and palm. Each is a land of endless shores, tiny bays and rocky inlets, where the colorful families of the ocean live, play and die in the crystal-clear waters of the reefs.

Marsh Harbour, on Abaco Island, is the third-largest city in the islands. This dusty little town is somewhat reminiscent of an American frontier cattle town of the 1880s. In contrast, the neat little painted villages of Hope Town, on Elbow Cay, and New Plymouth, on Green Turtle Cay, might well have been lifted up and flown in straight from New England.

If it's seclusion you're after, you'll find it in the Out Islands. The flat terrain and the long dusty roads, often devoid of travelers and always in various stages of disrepair, lend themselves well to walking or bicycling. Anglers no longer will need to tell tales of the one that got away. The bonefish here fight each other to take the hook and big game fish aren't as wary as they are off the coast of Florida. Shipwrecks, coral reefs, and mysterious blue holes dot the vast stretches of empty flats and shallow reefs. There are beaches where the sand is the color of pink champagne and there's not an empty soda can to be seen anywhere; where you can wade in the shallow waters, lie in the sun, or cast a line into the gently rolling surf. You might hook a chunky snapper and bake it over a small fire as the sun goes down. Get lucky and you could be eating fresh lobster instead of snapper.

The people of the Out Islands are friendly. They are real people, people without pretensions, their roots anchored firmly in the past. They say God bless you rather than good-bye, and think nothing of letting a stranger into their home to use the bathroom, or for a drink of water. They are a jolly people who look forward only to the next day, and are grateful for it.

Perhaps you'll meet the tourist guide who lives alone with her small son and drives an aging Chevrolet that rarely starts. It doesn't phase her a bit. She carries on with life, never complaining, knowing that, one way or another, she'll get there in the end; and she always does.

Maybe you'll meet the taxi driver whose small, three-bedroom home shelters not only him and his wife, but five grown-up children and six of his grandchildren as well. Far from being harassed by the situation, he'll tell you how happy he is that they are all around for him to enjoy.

These aren't isolated cases. Of course, you'll find the occasional bum lounging on the beach, and there are certainly some strange characters wandering the streets of Nassau. There's a certain amount of petty crime on the islands and everyone wants more money. But on the whole, there's an overwhelming air of tranquility, a don't worry; be happy attitude that pervades the islands, and it's infectious. Visitors returning home often find the easygoing Bahamian ways, the shrug of the shoulders, and an almost overpowering desire to put everything off until tomorrow, has returned with them.

Only a few of the Out Islands offer any sort of tourist accommodations. Some are small hotels where the air-conditioning is nothing more than the soft trade winds blowing in through the window, and the only telephone is a lonely pay phone somewhere in the vicinity of the hotel office. There are also rental cottages, villas, luxurious hotels, private islands, and even resorts.

History

Early Settlement

Before the Europeans arrived, the Bahamas were inhabited mostly by Lucayan Indians. Christopher Columbus, on his way to the New World, made landfall on San Salvador - so it's generally accepted - in 1492.

The islands became known as Bahama, from the Spanish baja mar, or shallow sea.

Almost immediately, Europeans began enslaving the Lucayans. By the turn of the 16th century, they had almost been wiped out and a new source of cheap labor was needed. As early as 1503, the Portuguese were enslaving Africans and for several years they controlled the burgeoning industry. By 1520, however, white slave traders of assorted nationalities were going directly to the source.

In 1649, Captain William Sayle and a band of Englishmen arrived in the islands from Bermuda. They came with slaves of their own, seeking religious freedom. They called themselves the Eleutherian Adventurers, hence the island of Eleuthera. The name is based upon the Greek word for freedom.

Pirates & Privateers

In 1666, New Providence was settled by a second group of Englishmen. They, too, arrived from Bermuda seeking a better life. By then, however, other adventurers had already realized that the Bahamas, close to the already busy shipping routes from the New World to Spain and Portugal, offered quick and easy pickings. By 1660, privateering (officially sanctioned and often royally commissioned piracy) was already an established industry.

A Voyage to Remember

Francis Drake

Sir John Hawkins had already made several journeys to the Caribbean selling slaves when he was joined in 1567 by Francis Drake, still a teenager, who made the journey as captain of his own ship, Judith. Their voyage ended in disaster when Hawkins and Drake, with a fleet of five ships, took refuge from a storm in the Spanish port of San Juan de Ulua, now called Vera Cruz. There, they were treachorously attacked by a superior Spanish fleet under the command of the new viceroy and Captain General of New Spain, Don Martin Enriquez. Hawkins' flagship, Jesus of Lubeck, and two other English ships were destroyed. Only the Minion and Drake's little bark returned to England. Thus began Drake's life-long personal war with Spain.

Drake and Hawkins were followed by an endless stream of privateers and pirates that, by the turn of the 18th century, included such notables as Sir Henry Morgan, Blackbeard and Captain Kidd. Captain Henry Jennings established a base in the Bahamas from which to raid the Spanish treasure ships sometime around 1714. Major Stede Bonnet, a wealthy French landowner of Barbados, turned to piracy simply for the adventure. He equipped a 10-gun sloop, Revenge, and in 1717 began to raid ships off the Virginia coast. He was hanged for piracy in November 1718.

Calico Jack

Captain John Rackham, called Calico Jack for the striped trousers he wore, was a pirate captain for the two years 1718 to 1720. During this short time he plundered many ships. He and his men were captured by the crew of a government ship and brought to trial at St. Jago de la Vega, Jamaica. Among Rackham's crew were his mistress, Mary Read, and Anne Bonney. They are the only female pirates on record. Rackham and Read were hanged in Port Royal on November 17, 1720.

The pirates were finally driven out of the Bahamas after Captain Woodes Rogers was appointed Royal Governor in 1718. When he arrived at New Providence, about 1,000 pirates were living on the island. Rogers blocked the harbor with two ships so that the outlaws couldn't escape. A fierce fight followed, during which the pirates set fire to one of their own ships and sailed it toward the English ships, forcing Rogers' ships back out to sea. Nevertheless, Rogers finally took possession of the island and the pirates were driven away. A statue of Rogers stands in front of the British Colonial Hotel in Nassau.

Captain Jean Lafitte, who died in about 1826, was the last colorful figure in the history of piracy. Lafitte, a patriot as well as a pirate, privateer, and smuggler, was enormously successful, but eventually he too lost his land base and his power dwindled.

The 19th Century

Just prior to the turn of the 19th century, after the American Revolution had drawn to a close, a new breed of immigrant arrived in the islands. These were one-time English colonists in America who were still loyal to England and its government. They left Virginia with their slaves and settled in the Bahamas.

By 1800, the black population of the islands had tripled. Emancipation came to the Bahamas in August 1834, and the newly liberated slaves left Nassau and moved over the hill to establish settlements of their own. The descendants of those slaves still live in Grant's Town, Carmichael, Gambier and Adelaide, as well as on the Out Islands of The Exumas, Rum Cay, San Salvador, Long Island and others. Unfortunately, the one-time slaves were unequipped for life on their own; the new settlements endured but didn't prosper. The black Bahamians became the poor people of the islands.

The Modern Era

By the early 1900s, people of African descent had become the majority of the Bahamian population, but power remained in the hands of the white minority. By the 1930s, the islands had been discovered by the millionaire developers from America and Europe, and the gap between the races grew even wider.

Things continued in much the same vein for more than 40 years until 1951, when women and people who didn't own property were given the right to vote. Eight years later, the black majority took the Bahamas into independence as a commonwealth nation, despite fierce opposition from the British government and white property owners.

Today, with the boom in tourism, the black population is doing better. Many of the new businesses on the islands are owned by Bahamians of African descent and there's a real sense of pride in this ownership.

Getting There

By Air

Both Nassau and Freeport are major US and international gateways. Dozens of airlines regularly fly between the islands and Europe, Canada and various US terminals, including most major cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston and Atlanta; and locations in Florida. Visitors can fly freely between the islands by Bahamasair, tel. 800-222-4262, www.bahamasair.com, the national carrier. Charter flights between the islands are also available. See the At a Glance section at the end of this guide for full details.

By Cruise Ship

Four major cruise lines offer three- and four-night, regularly scheduled cruises to the Bahamas. Royal Caribbean Internat