Having done so much on this island the past four days, I had not had the time to write in my journal. Where was I? My brain is still scrambled, especially when it comes to recalling the days and the hours. I’ve had a great time here, but I want to get a move on. Otherwise, I’m settling into island life. No longer surprised by every new thing I see, and I’m a bit less wide-eyed about my experiences. I hope this new perspective will reveal some new things to me, instead of making the rest of this trip less enjoyable.
Saturday I ended up going diving alone. My potential dive friend had changes in the work schedule, though I think the idea of going out to the reef with a stranger must have been intimidating. And it is. You’re out there, completely out of your environment surrounded by creatures that are vastly different from you. Your only lifeline is your little tender, anchored seemingly precariously by an anchor that looks comically small compared to the one on the mother ship.
When I say it like that it does sound scary. But its really not that bad. We generally don’t go out on bad weather days. And the diminutive ground tackle is actually quite effective. The one I have for my tender is only six pounds. Its a miniature version of my old thirty-three pound backup anchor on Sonora, which is called a Bruce anchor. Even at six pounds, its much oversized for the dinghy, and the weight alone is sufficient to keep the tender where it is.
Skies were a beautiful blue as usual, and the water gets even clearer as you leave the harbour in your dinghy. The water was just cold enough where it quickly sapped my strength. After an hour of diving, I had to come back up on the zodiac to warm up. I sat there shivering in my rain jacket, bobbing up and down in the tropical sun, trying to regain some strength. The reef itself was awesome. Now closer to the southern side of the barrier reef, the structure looked different than what I had seen on the other islands. Instead of being giant formations of coral heads, these seem to grow out gradually from the sand. I tried to imagine what this reef might have looked like before the sand covered the bottom of these reefs. I bet you it looked magnificent, like an unbelievable scene out of a fantasy book.
I was getting better at this hunting thing. I was learning which species tend to be weary of you, and when fish get curious. And how you needed to act for the fish to grow accustomed of you.
Reef fish are intelligent. They understand eye contact. In contrast, some house cats don’t know understand eye contact, though my cat is just smart enough to stare into your eyes. If you are laser-focused on one fish, it’ll notice it. If you swim directly at it, it’ll certainly run. When they are schooling with others, they tend to be a bit bolder. They’ll run, then hide behind something. But curiosity gets the better of them and they will peek over to take a look at you. This is another opportunity to hit them with your spear. Curiosity killed the fish!
At first, I thought there were no big fish at this reef. Eventually I realized most of them were hiding. I think it was partially because of the current running through the reef at that time of the day. Makes sense, since the bigger fish would waste more energy swimming around in the rough surface current. I certainly did. I did not have much of a breath hold on this session. About eight seconds or so at the bottom, I’d have to come back up. I had to use a lot of oxygen just to avoid being knocked around around by the current. The big fish probably laughed at this lumbering, clumsy, air-breathing intruder.
I was focused on the hunt this time. I wanted to learn as much as I could about spearfishing from this session. Instead of being slack jawed at the still incredible scenery, I was truly hunting. But everything has its costs. This resulted in less overall enjoyment. Hopefully the experience will have payoff in the future.
I was very aggressive with my pole spear. Shooting at anything I thought I could eat. After all, this is what I needed to do to learn the range of my spear. I even shot at a few juvenile yellow tail jacks, grabbing the spear before it reached the fish. They swam away unharmed, with some more weariness of humans.
I was starting to think about giving up on catching any fish when I spotted a pair of fish that looked familiar. Jack and snapper seem to patrol around in patterns, following an invisible-to-me circuit around the reef. I had seen these fish when I first jumped into the water. I was seeing them again as they finished another lap. They seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. I followed them for a few seconds until I was on top of the two friends out on a stroll. Sadly, wherever they were trying to get to, only one would make it. I loaded up my spear, dove on top of them and let ‘er fly. Top down shots are hard, as the fish present a slim and difficult target profile. My spear tip hit the fish in a glancing blow, slicing just below its skin on its side. The small section of the skin was enough. It stayed on precariously on the spear until I got back to the boat. From tail to head, it was about the size of my forearm, including a closed fist. This wasn’t as big as it sounds – jacks are slim, built for speed. Despite the tiring, heart-pounding swim back to the dinghy, I was reenergized. I went back in the water to see if I could catch anything else.
I saw two more fish hiding in a big hole. They were deciding what to do about me. It was my chance. I loaded my spear and fired at it, and the tip found its mark, transmitting a very satisfying vibration to my hand. The fish did an crazy circle while it was on the spear, throwing up a huge cloud of sand and scales. I pulled at it for a few seconds, but the barb must have closed from all of the thrashing. The fish broke loose and swam away. Like a good hunter, I went back down to see if I could track it down, but it was gone. It was shark bait now. Poor fellow.
Eventually I motored back to the boat, retracing the path I took to get out. It really is beautiful here. The sea bed is clearly visible even with some wave action. I guess I was the last one out– all the fellow spearos’ dinghies were gone. My mooring neighbors who saw me go out got out on the deck and waved at me. I proudly showed off my modest sized catch, trading the glorious sight for some thumbs up. It felt like I was crossing the finish line at a motorcycle race.
I thoroughly enjoy spear fishing but I do not enjoy cleaning fish, nor am I any good at it. Truthfully, I get a bit squeamish taking apart what used to be a living creature, and turning it into an unrecognizable piece of food. That is a horrible trait for a hunter. These fish are absolutely gorgeous in their environment and even after having felt the rush of the hunt, I still felt a lot of remorse. This fish was out on a afternoon stroll, holding hands, perhaps on a date with its partner. Swimming through familiar waters when its date was tragically interrupted by me. The other fish is swimming around somewhere lamenting the loss of its friend. The memory of this beautiful creature drove me to try my best at filleting this fish, and I was able to extract a full meal out of it. I used a local fish fry I had bought in Marsh Harbor and fried it up with some garlic and onions. It was excellent, but a bit fishy smelling. I had a belly full of fish and no more energy. Most importantly, no pressing responsibilities on this vacation. Now was as good as time as ever to sleep.
I spent the next two days cycling around the island. First, I made the two mile pedal to the southern portion of Elbow Cay. Everyone was talking about Tahiti beach, and I wanted to see what that was all about. As you head toward the bottom section of Elbow Cay, there is a part where the island gets very narrow. I’d been told that the views were incredible over there.
Eventually, the village was behind me and I was on an elevated road, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the Sea of Abaco on the other. I cycled past the section, noticing the increased winds in this unprotected area of land. The road was on an elevated part of the land. You could see the windward and leeward sides at the same time. Only about seventy meters separated the Atlantic ocean and the Sea of Abaco. A panoramic view shows a quaint piece of road winding through cut-coral walls, with island vegetation sloping down towards the beaches on both sides. Incredible waves crashed on the beach on the eastern side. A decent amount of seas built up on the leeward side.
I get lost easily, and unfortunately, the signs did not say what road was on. Locals don’t need signs to remember what road they were on, but I did. Instead, the sign posts showed the rough direction and distance to many faraway cities. New York City, this way, London, that way. Useless to me. One curious, hand-painted sign said “Patuxtant River, 1150 miles.” A Chesapeake bay sailor must have put that one up. Unless you were a US Navy aviator, I don’t know who else would even know about the Pax River. I saw another sign post that had a sign at the top that said ‘Hope Town – Not for Sissies.” The angry sign looked really out of place for a beautiful, quiet and touristy island.
The entire southern tip of the island is privately owned, and the homes there are a part of a single development. The road that goes to that tip is abruptly interrupted by a sign that says “private.” There is no gate, but the area is fenced. I ignored the sign and cycled in. I don’t think anyone would care. Besides, I’d just tell them I’m a successful young attorney looking for a piece of property to buy. Half of the plots were for sale, and it’d only be half a lie.
I found the beach! Just as everyone told me, it did have an incredible view of the Lubber’s Cay and some other cool small islets. But I wasn’t too impressed. I’ve never been much of a beach guy. Back in my beach-going, college days, I’d only go to look at girls and to show off my at-the-time fit body, or to enjoy the ambience of a Southern California beach town. Nowadays, I’d rather be on, or in the water. Or perhaps I’ve seen enough beaches and islands. Maybe it was just the blistering wind. The sand, carried by the wind, would sting my skin like I was in a giant sand blaster on low power.
I stopped by what is supposed to be the best restaurant on the island – Willie’s Kitchen and Bar. It had the best prices too! I ordered pork ribs but got fried chicken instead. Not a word of complaint from me though, because the chicken was excellent. I noticed something else here. They were playing music that plays at zouk dance events, with English and French lyrics. And the people, while very polite, weren’t as friendly and jolly as Bahamians were. I realized the people who owned the place were not Bahamians.
When the older lady asked me where I was from, I took this opportunity for small-talk to ask her if they were Haitians. She was excited that I noticed, and asked me if I had Haitian friends back home. I lived in Florida for six years, so of course I did! She gives me a wink and goes “Maybe a Haitian wife back home too?”
Haitians make up the migrant working class in the Bahamas, as I found out. There is slight class divide between Bahamians and Haitians. Traditionally, a lot of Haitians moved to the Bahamas, but after the recent disasters in Haiti, there has been a big wave of immigration to this country. Although there is a law against hiring non-permitted Bahamians, at times of need, apparently this law is unenforced– as long as its a Bahamian entity hiring them. And right now, with hurricane reconstruction going on, the Haitians are at work. Either way, I find Haitian food to fit my palate, which spent its childhood being assaulted by countless Asian spices, better than Bahamian food.
I came back to a cloudy, stormy harbour. I rushed to make it back aboard Sonora before it got too nasty. That night, a thunderstorm blew right above my boat. By now, I’m used to this. I had no problem watching movies on my boat while the wind cut between the boats at the crowded anchorage. When I poked my head out the hatch, I saw a building get hit by lightning. A cascade of sparks flew from the resort compounds electrical system. I hoped no one was hurt. That lightening missed the lighthouse, which was by far the tallest building. It also missed all the juicy, conductive and aluminum masts connected to the salt water. It hit that building instead. Someone is very lucky, and someone is very unlucky.
I’m only on land during the windy days. During calm days, I want to go diving. My exploration North was the same. Wind, wind and wind. At some points, I stopped pedaling and the wind would push me in the direction I wanted to go. On this little excursion, I made a game for myself. I wanted to find a coconut. All the trees bearing them were too tall, or were on peoples’ yards. I cycled through roads seemingly cut into a hedgerow of flora that was foreign to me. It was really a cute sight, which would be interrupted by having to maneuver around soggy, lime stone powder mud from the rains before.
I managed to find a tree with a low enough coconut that I could jump up and touch. I spent a good half-hour on the side of that narrow, sandy road trying to get it. I could not knock it down with a stick. It would be difficult to climb. I eventually took a piece of paracord from my bag and decided to tie it around the fruit to pull it down. In order to do this, I had to whittle a piece of stick to stick the paracord into. A lot of these island trees have very light, spongy branches. My blade slipped and made a cut on my hand. Now bleeding, I was over invested. No backing out now! I bet the people driving by me were laughing — inwardly, since they are too polite to laugh out loud. But eventually, I got the coconut.
Back at the boat, I took a oscillating multi-tool to the coconut to open the coconut. The coconut barely had any edible meat, and the juice did not taste good. The idiot leans his lesson: don’t take young coconut.
That evening, I spent some time on Ken’s big catamaran. It was a big, beautiful boat with separate staterooms. Ken was my mooring neighbor. He was by himself waiting for his family to come back from the US. He is actually from the DC area, just like me, and had recently retired from a very interesting career involving international development and politics. Just sitting in a more condo-like setting was good for my mind. We talked a lot over some rum and I was glad to make a new friend.
The next morning, I went and paid for my mooring. The store who owned my mooring was closed the past few days because on of their employees tested positive for COVID-19. The lady, who interestingly had a Spanish accent, muttered that I was the only person paying for more than one day on the mooring. I guess everyone else had lied to her. That is a bummer for that family; someone gets COVID, and the entire store doesn’t make any money for a few weeks during peak season.
The day before, I had made a post on Hope Town Facebook group and offered to give a bunch of KF94 masks to anyone who needed it. Another local store asked for them, so I had went by dropped off the masks. They had let me leave my folding bicycle chained to their store so that I didn’t have to haul the bicycle back to the boat. I retrieved the bike, then took my tender across the harbor to fill up my water jugs. With this departure preparation out of the way, it was time to go diving again!
It was only blowing seven or eight knots but the water was a lot choppier than I had expected. I was glad to be in Ken’s tender, because it could do over ten knots over these waters. That is much faster than mine. I did a few dives but Ken didn’t make it in. The chops had made him seasick, and the waters were challenging. A lot of current, and very murky waters. After checking out three clusters of reefs, we gave up, and came back empty handed.
I saw the beautiful sunset from the harbor for the last time. The island of Elbow Cay, and the village of Hopetown was very charming. Yes, its definitely a bit touristy. The whole island basically caters to vacationers, cruisers, and expats who bought property here. But the outsiders had not stolen all of the charms of the island yet. Its still as Bahamian as it gets, and it is still one of the most beautiful, photogenic places in the Bahamas.
The next day, I would leave for Little Harbour. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Elbow Cay, but I wasn’t too sad to leave this place. Further south, the more modern, heavily-visited places go away and a slice of the ‘old Bahamas’ starts. I lied there in my bunk imagining more genuine interactions with people, but also worried a little bit about possibly having to deal with less infrastructure. At the least, I would have to wait until Eleuthera to get fuel. Its also the last of the Abacos and the end of this awesome barrier reef. What would the end of the Abacos be like? Eleuthera? Is the diving still good there? Am I still going to be alone? There was only one way to find out!