Nabbing the Float
Ankles are healing and today was more like a “normal” day on Eleuthera. I enjoyed my morning half grapefruit and then we puttered around the property. I rummaged through a bin full of snorkels and masks and fins, attempting to find a pair of flippers that would allow my still-tender sprained ankle to enjoy a trip around the reef. I succeeded and launched myself in the crystal clear water. It’s so warm now…April is in full swing. I swam out to the little reef right off our beach. We call it “Potlatch Reef” but surely that’s a tip of the hat to past days.
Potlatch Reef is small but really has a lot of fish for being so close to the beach. Last time out I found the most amazing sea biscuit lying in the sand just off the eastern side. This time I found a pocket of probably fifty fish–the expected Sergeant Majors near the surface, and then in a little cave were yellow snappers, grunts, perhaps the tip of an inquisitive grouper, and surprisingly a pretty large hog snapper peering at me. Fish know when you don’t have a spear…and I didn’t. I dove under and we viewed each other and I guess I blinked first and finally swam away.
Back near shore now and I saw over the water line that Fred had hobbled down to the beach on *his* fractured ankle, accompanied by our four dogs. People and dogs were thrilled to be back on the fine pink sand. We all swam and shook dry and headed back to the house. After an outdoor shower by the path we were feeling warm and positive about what used to be a daily routine but was interrupted and now had returned. Ahhhhh.
Drying on the deck, Fred exclaimed there was a float on the beach. We’d just left there! I looked and sure enough, there was a basketball-sized yellow/orange fishing ball washed up directly in front of Tippy’s. Fred had just come back from Tippy’s with dog in tow, and I knew the restaurant was full of lunchers. I wanted that float! I limped down our deck stairs and did my best to at least appear to saunter next door to the water’s edge. Take it from personal experience, it is difficult to appear casual with a sore ankle on sand. Still, I reached the float and picked it up. It’s plastic, sure, but it’s a nice one…made in Spain, large, and solid. I was afraid to even look at the lunch crowd, thinking that someone might challenge me for my prize.
Back home safely I washed the sand off the float and set it in the sun to dry.
Eleuthera: “What do you DO?”
Three months and a week…98 days…that’s how long I’ve now been on Eleuthera. I haven’t written anything since I’ve been here because I was too busy being a sponge, absorbing the sights and smells and sunlight and sounds. But it’s time to answer the one question everyone asks once they understand the apparent dearth of activities on Eleuthera: “Really? What do you DO?”
It’s true there are not a lot of traditional time-killers here. There is no movie theater. There are a handful of lunch spots and only a half dozen dinner venues. There are no minor or major league sports games, no jewelry or shoe stores, perhaps one or two clothing shops, four decent grocery stores. I’m not referring to one town…I’m talking about the whole hundred mile island. And yet I’m not ever bored. It does beg that question asked with inflection of amazement and wonder: “Really? What do you DO?”
I could break down my days by detailing my daily routine, but while that would logically answer the question it wouldn’t capture the spirit. And it’s important to capture Eleuthera’s spirit because that’s what captivates me here and keeps me enthralled. Perhaps Eleuthera’s spirit can best be described in three elements: its history, its beauty, and its people.
Eleuthera’s history dates back further than 1648 when Englishmen from Bermuda fled here to find religious freedom. The Arawak Indians and Christopher Columbus’ Spaniards wouldn’t appreciate me starting Eleuthera’s history then. But suffice it to say that Governor’s Harbour as I know it was settled in the mid-1600s. Governor’s Harbour is approximately in the middle of the island and is as charming and picturesque town as I’ve seen anywhere in the Bahamas. Clapboard houses, bougainvillea and a couple of narrow streets cascade down the central hill like frosting on a wedding cake. Once on top of the hill you can see the deep blue Atlantic ocean to the east and the shimmering turquoise Caribbean sea to the west. The sun rises over the Atlantic and sets over the Caribbean and Governor’s Harbour smiles on both of these powerful, awesome color dances.
My personal history here is simpler. I started spending my summers here with my stepfather, mother and brother when I was ten. We rented a variety of houses, first at Ten Bay and then, once we realized that the Caribbean side may not be the best place to perch in the summer, we rented houses on the Atlantic side. Our practice of visiting Eleuthera in the off-season continued until I was a young adult and well out of college. Ironically my father and stepmother also came here in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, frequenting the Potlatch Club for two weeks every winter. Although my early involvement with Eleuthera did not have anything to do with that set of parents, their immersion in the island ended up having quite a bit to do with my life here now. Beyond my parents though, most important to me was the constant that Eleuthera provided. I moved to several different cities when I was a kid. I went to four high schools in six years. Different schools and different faces and different friends were my reality nine months out of every year. Coming to Eleuthera was familiar and friendly. Coming to Eleuthera became synonymous with coming home.
I could write volumes on Eleuthera’s history—it really is pretty entertaining—but my intent is simply to illustrate my comfort level with the island, my base for happiness. What builds on that base is Eleuthera’s utter, jaw-dropping beauty. There is not a day that passes that I don’t exclaim out loud, “Look at that. That’s just so beautiful!” “That” is most often the water. The water here is ridiculously gorgeous. It is the most vibrant shades of blue and turquoise one can imagine. The colors sneak up on me. I’ll be driving down the Queen’s Highway, the one main road that runs the length of the island, the road will bend and pow-blam-whoop there is a raucous riot of sea color in front me. The water colors are so vibrant and beautiful they make me gasp.
The beaches here are lovely too. The sight of a pink sand beach that stretches for miles, framed by verdant green sea grass, palm trees and casuarinas on one side, and the unbelievable blues of the sea on the other, provides a treat for my eyes and mind. One of my favorite moments comes when I watch a small wave crest as it comes ashore. There is sometimes a split second of absolute clarity in such a wave, a clearness that is like a magnifying glass, when it seems I can see the entire ocean floor. Moments such as that are infinitely more valuable to me than man-made ones caught in a movie theater or at a football game.
The top of the pyramid that builds on my comfort level here and my appreciation of Eleuthera’s beauty, the apex that makes it all work, are the people. There are many special people here, but overwhelmingly one person in particular makes my days tick. My partner Fred is my best friend and constant companion. We laugh together and live together. Fred met my father and stepmother on the Potlatch Club beach forty years ago, and I feel like I’ve known him that long too. We could have fun anywhere, but his love for Eleuthera equals my love for the island and together we create something stronger. Eleuthera is our rock, and that grey coral creates a strong, beautiful bond.
Bahamians are friendly, happy people. As you drive along Queen’s Highway, everyone waves at each passing car. I smile a lot here. Their happiness is contagious. Now too, in season, there are other residents like Fred and me, people who come to live for three or four or five months a year. Without exception these are interesting folks, people who are willing to stake their place on an island without many services. We are all different but we share a common understanding of what it means to be here. We are a patchwork quilt of people spread across the island. As I delight in finding a float or sand dollar on the beach, I delight in venturing out and running into a friend. The people here are the treasures on Eleuthera’s shore.
The answer to what I do here is that I move within the rhythm of Eleuthera’s spirit. The spirit moves me, lets me see life in a different light, allows me to escape the frantic materialistic grind that was my life in America. Eleuthera’s informal motto is “Eleuthera: It’s not for everyone”. While I doubt the Bahamas tourism board advertises this, I can vouch for its truthfulness. I do know that Eleuthera is for me.
Accompanying Photo: Painting by Winslow Homer, “Glass Windows, Bahamas”, 1885, Eleuthera.
A Day for Blue Floats
Eleuthera’s beaches spoiled me as a kid…I just didn’t know it. I guess it’s similar to the girl in my grade school carpool group whose mother picked us up once a week in her Rolls Royce. I once commented to her that it was a fancy car and she looked at me with surprise; I guess she’d never thought about her Mom’s car that way. That’s how I was with Eleuthera’s beaches. I just assumed that all beaches everywhere were long and predominantly empty with powdery pink sand and a cornucopia of treasures waiting to be found. As I grew up and traveled to other destinations I looked in vain for duplicate beach experiences. It is now as an adult that I know how unique Eleuthera’s beaches are, and I cherish them. As I walked two dramatically different beaches today I thought about what it is that makes these beaches special.
Eleuthera is a hundred mile long, skinny island in the Bahamas. On one side the calm turquoise Caribbean sea laps at her shores. The other side of the island plays host to the deep blue open Atlantic ocean with its waves and white caps and fish-filled reefs. The Caribbean side doesn’t have as many beaches, and those it does have are shorter and the sand feels coarser, although I suspect that’s because there are so many shells that haven’t completely broken up because of the gentler water. Turtle (the dog) and I started our dual beach day with a visit to Ten Bay. This is where my brother and I paddled our little inflatable raft around when I was ten. Our house for the summer, the Blue House, was the only house there at the time, and we were definitely the only people–ever–in the bay or on the beach. Today there are a dozen or more houses ringing the bay. Turtle and I were alone on the beach when we got there, but shortly thereafter we were joined by two families and a single Bahamian man.
The Caribbean side has different tides than the Atlantic side. This was the primary reason we went to Ten Bay–it was low tide there. I am more used to the Atlantic side so I am conditioned to walking the beach at low tide. Low tide yields firm sand and more shells. Unfortunately on the Caribbean side, at least at Ten Bay, low tide wasn’t such a boon. Low tide there meant we could walk out 100 yards or more with the water never reaching my swim suit. Even Turtle didn’t have to swim. The water was warm because it was so shallow. The day was hot and the mosquitoes were biting even in the water. We walked the beach from one end to the other. It was mushy and most of the way we were on a sandbar of sorts that emerged once the tide receded. I found a cute little starfish the size of a quarter and moved him to deeper water so he could grow to be a big starfish. All in all Turtle and I had an ok time at Ten Bay, but I didn’t have the magical experience that walks on “my” beach render. So we packed up and went back home so I could try to figure out what makes those Atlantic beaches so special.
There are many great beaches on the Atlantic side. The crashing waves grind up coral and shells and produce a very fine sand with flecks of pink. The beaches wind for miles, punctuated by sharp greyish coral that you can’t cross barefoot. I walk down the path to the beach and am confronted with two choices: go left and walk to the rocks and back for a total of two and a half miles, or go right and walk two miles. For some reason I like going left more and that’s what Turtle and I did today.
I get lost in my mind walking the beach. I suppose it’s similar to what runners feel. I can think of nothing or I can focus on a problem and often find the solution. The colors are so vivid–the different blue shades of the water and the sky, the gold and pink and white of the sand, the varying shades of green of the palmettos and dune grasses. It is a visual cacophony that dances and shimmers. The sound of the waves and call of the birds is mesmerizing. The smells range from salty to fishy, sweet grass to pungent decay. Every sense has its circus.
The sand is peppered with wanna-be treasures and real treasures. The difference lies in the eye of the beholder. Of course the shells are no-brainers. Almost anyone will pick up a sand dollar or a little conch shell that’s perfect and unbroken. After that it all depends on what you’re looking for, or perhaps more appropriately, what you’re open to finding. When I was younger my Holy Grail were glass fishing floats. I was born slightly too late to find them; Bahamians would tell me stories of beaches piled high with them, too many to carry to the car. I just wanted to find one. Floats had switched to the more durable and cheaper plastic. I’d just about given up ever finding my own when I was 19 and on the beach at Windermere with a friend from college. He’d just gotten to the island and I was showing him the beach. I pointed to a purplish hue up ahead and said, “Now those are man-o-wars–jellyfish–and they can sting even on the beach, so you want to avoid them.” As we got closer I saw it was a purple glass fishing ball. I grabbed it and hooped and hollered and did a little victory dance. My friend thought I was crazy but it was a moment I’ll never forget.
Today I passed a little grass hut on the beach where I’d left my t-shirt the other day when it was raining. It stopped raining and I took off the shirt and tied it to a broken lounge chair and put a blue plastic float on it to weigh it down. I thought the blue float pretty and I thought about a friend whose mission it is to find blue floats on the beach. I guess she has a blue float collection or she’s found blue floats to be lucky. Who knows, but blue floats are her beach treasure. As I walked by the hut today I noticed that someone had removed the broken furniture. I idly wondered what had happened to the blue float, because it wasn’t there anymore either. As I walked maybe a 1/2 mile further, there, just brought in by the waves, was a blue float. They’re not really all that common. I picked it up and contemplated for a while whether I manifested the float by thinking about it. Nah… So I turned around and started the hike back. The sand was mushy because it was getting close to high tide. I was walking at the top of the beach and it was rough and slow going. I was almost back to the house and there, in front of me, was my second blue float of the day.
That’s the magic of an Eleutheran beach walk. It is the best of so many worlds. It’s great exercise. It’s fulfilling to the senses. It’s rewarding for the mind. It’s the thrill of finding two blue floats with a focus that wasn’t there at the start of the walk.
An Escaped Herd of Horses
Looking out the plate glass window in front of me, I see in the distance sloping lavender hills dotted with pine trees. The sun is coming out after a brief rain and the sunlight plays with the colors and turns purple to maroon and brown to tan. Closer to me on the right is a ridge of brick red rocks that rise behind me to a grand grassy plateau overlooking the towering Grand Tetons in the distance and the outline of our little ranch nestled in the valley below. We’ve been at Red Rocks Ranch outside of Jackson Hole, WY, for two days now. My primary activity here is horseback riding on my assigned horse, Cody. Bouncing around in the saddle surrounded by all of this natural untouched beauty I found myself drawing similarities between this western remote world and the remoteness of Eleuthera.
There is no cell phone service here. There is a ranch phone and some sort of internet service that one buys by the megabyte, naturally limiting usage. There is no TV or radio. It reminds me of my early years staying on Eleuthera when one had to stand in line at the Batelco in Governor’s Harbour to make a phone call. When there are none of the standard attention grabbers to which we are all accustomed, one has to make his or her own fun. This is one reason why families migrate here year after year. Families play together during the day and then relax together at night, laughing and reliving the day over the dinner table and then the campfire. I am here with Fred’s kids and their spouses, celebrating Fred’s 70th birthday.
I can see the stables to my right. When I started writing this I watched as a new group of visitors practiced their riding skills in the ring and then headed out to the rolling hills for their first ride, single file, horses clopping through the mud. That was me just two days ago. I was introduced to Cody, a good sized brown horse with a white blaze between the eyes and a beautiful strawberry blonde mane and tail. Women spend a lot of time at hairdressers the world over to get hair that color. His gentle brown eyes belie a spunk that isn’t beyond snapping at a horse that follows too closely or testing me every chance he gets to see if I’ll let him snack on the greenery along the trail.
It is wonderful to meander down the trails that dot the ranch’s 640 acres and its surrounding national forest and wilderness areas. Everything is safety first, the mantra of our liability-conscious times. Your cowboy hat must be secured with a chin strap. Your boots must have a heel and cannot be lace-up. You are not allowed to approach the horses from the front when they are tied to the rail as you may get your hand caught between the rail and the horse. You must not stray from the group or even ride side by side. A wrangler, a ranch employee, must accompany you at all times, even in the ring. But I imagine myself free and alone and romanticize the horse and I as best friends galloping across the countryside. Fred tells of his times at camp in Wyoming, over fifty years ago, when he and his friends played Capture the Flag on horses, continually falling off and crawling back on, bouncing off the others and the earth. There were no rules and everyone learned from their bumps and bruises and mistakes. Such is how our world has changed.
Within such necessary logistical confines the ranch still is an oasis in our modern world. The horses and the wildlife and the bell that rings in the morning at 7:30 are all an adult throwback to camp. We learn to commune with nature and value the beauty that surrounds us. Walking outside in the morning as a light frost dots the ground, it is a wonder to look up and see the towering hills around us. A herd of horses escaped from some nearby ranch yesterday. We saw them on our morning ride romping around in a pasture, and then saw them on our afternoon ride again. They lined a grassy ridge above us, peering down at us like gleeful kids. Their owner will track them down and wrangle them to their home pastures soon, but for right now they have natural food and water available and they frolic as though on vacation. We are those same escaped horses.
Eleuthera offers crystal clear turquoise waters instead of painted hills and snow capped mountains. Darting yellow snapper and playful grouper, viewed through the round glass of a face mask, substitute for horses and antelope and the occasional prized moose sighting. Eleuthera offers friendly Bahamians and a scattering of restaurants and bars, small settlements dot the lone thoroughfare and the basic necessities can usually be found in nearly every larger town. The ranch is a 45 minute drive to the nearest convenience store and there is one restaurant and one bar. Still, the similarities are here. Both destinations are isolated havens from our frantic everyday lives. Both offer time to think and ponder and talk and visit and learn and laugh. As I grow older I value these retreats more. I value the time to reacquaint myself to me.
The Day After Irene on Eleuthera
It’s the color of the water on the Caribbean side. The Atlantic side has bounced back a bit, and under blue skies this afternoon it was characteristically turquoise and many shades of delectable blue. Every time I’ve seen the Caribbean sea today I’ve tried to figure out what to call the color–minty tan, maybe? The photo included with this post is of that water. Regardless of wording, it’s a constant reminder to me as I drive up and down the island that things here on Eleuthera aren’t the same since Irene.
Today I drove to the Governor’s Harbour airport to check whether flights are coming in and out. Fred and I were booked on the Gulfstream flight to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow but could get no clear guidance whether they were flying yet. I found the international terminal dark (well they’re all dark–no power) and the ticket agent and security person were all by themselves. They said the issue with international flights (i.e. to the U.S.) is that they can’t contact American customs since phones are down and there is no cell signal at the airport. The fact they don’t have power isn’t an automatic deal killer as far the U.S. is concerned, they said. If someone in authority (whomever that may be…Lord knows not me!) told the FAA everything was ok they’d still fly. These necessary things include the runway needs to be clear and the fire truck needs to be manned and readied.
So then I went to the domestic terminal. BahamasAir is flying (supposedly–I didn’t see a plane). The Pineapple Air agent said she was expecting a flight in shortly, but they have no communication either so really she had no idea. She did say that by tomorrow it should all be sorted out. We have faith in this statement and are booked on Pineapple Air to Nassau tomorrow.
I left the airport and drove slightly south to check on the possibility of getting a propane refill for the generator. I had to wait a bit for the proprietor to finish some business, so Turtle and I walked to the adjacent beach. That’s where I took today’s photo of the water. One thing that continually strikes me with the beaches is how much seaweed is everywhere. The Atlantic beaches have seaweed, this Caribbean beach had seaweed, where the storm surge covered the road there is seaweed. There was a small red wooden boat on the road, about 1/4 mile inland, leading to this little beach. I guess it had been carried there in the storm. It too was surrounded by and filled with seaweed.
From there I drove to Palmetto Point and then to Savannah Sound. There are electric lines dangling over Queen’s Highway in several locations. I saw lots of industrious Bahamians everywhere: in Governor’s Harbour clearing downtown of sand and seaweed, along the road clearing debris, Batelco and BEC trucks mending and carrying this and that. It’s hopeful to see such signs of a return to normalcy.
Cell phone coverage is very spotty. Some areas show no service but a short walk across the road yields one bar. Two bars are reason for celebration. Communication on the island continues to be a challenge. Not only do the great majority of landlines not work, but only a handful of people with generators have power and can charge their cell phones.
The destruction on the island is more widespread than I thought. Twice today I had conversations with men who were standing on their roofs with hammers in hands. Roof damage is probably the most common effect of Irene. Fallen tree branches and trees on houses is also a problem. The really big beautiful tree on the Atlantic side of Palmetto Point near Banks Road lost several limbs and pretty well decimated the house below it. Tamarind House in Governor’s Harbour, named for its prominent Tamarind tree, has now lost its namesake. Fortunately the majestic tree fell away from the house.
We don’t know if we’ll be able to get on a plane tomorrow. I am ambivalent. There is a powerful energy on Eleuthera, that of rebirth and determination. I hate to leave it, if only for a little while. We’ll be back soon.
