Spanish Wells

When all the weather that was going to happen had happened, it just wasn't worth the effort. We could easily have gone north to the Abacos on Thursday and Friday; we could easily have stayed in the harbor at Royal Island. Of course, had we stayed on anchor we would have been boat bound, not a pleasing thing for Carol.

On Thursday, the day we arrived at Spanish Wells we saw the worst of the day on the short trip between islands although one boat that came arrived in the afternoon had seen 40 knot winds, but just in a squall that quickly passed.

On Friday, late in the afternoon, we saw this knife edge of the front slice its way south. Behind was marshaled a host of low, lumpy cumulus clouds, dark and swollen with rain and linked each to the other with horizontal bursts of lightning, none being wasted on the ground, a comforting thought when your tiny home has a five story lightning rod in its middle. 60 minutes of rain and it was all over. We saw nothing of the 60 knot, hurricane force winds but we're not complaining. The thing is, though, that you cannot know where that Fickle Finger of Fate is going to point. Here, it was a non-event; five miles away may have been a disaster. So, safe and tethered to a dock is OK.

We have two barometers on board. One is the standard analog dial and the other is digital, part of a weather/temperature station. I am not assiduous about recording the readings but I do pay attention. In the past month, or so, I have not seen any readings below 30.00 inches of mercury; on Friday the pressure dropped to 29.80, not an alarming number, but unusual. 29.92 is normal at sea level.

This is an interesting island, quite different from the other small islands that we have seen; small in this case is 2-mi. x 0.5-mi. Tossing out Freeport and Nassau, Spanish Wells is, by far, the wealthiest place we have visited. It has nothing to do with tourism and everything to do with reaping nature's bounty from the sea. There are seven marinas on this island and only one, Spanish Wells Yacht Haven, accepts pleasure craft. All others are reserved for working boats and all of the working boats collect fish and shellfish. Almost all of the catch is sold off the island through distributors, there being few restaurants here. In our travels I have seen lots of working fishing boats but I have never seen boats as immaculately maintained as these. There was not a rust streak to be seen anywhere even though the lobster season just ended. Sunrise over the fleet.

It also the whitest island we have seen, probably more than 90%.

We rented a golf cart for 24 hours to see the island. It has been four months since I have been at the wheel of anything but the boat and we/I had to drive on the left hand side of the road. It is focusing when a monster Ford F150 is coming in the other direction. There were no traffic fatalities during our drive so I guess we did OK. There are lots of for sale signs about and the prices here are not nearly so scary as they were in the Exumas. Most normal people could find a way to buy a house away from the water. Spanish Wells is mostly built out; there are very few empty spaces on which to put new construction. Most of the lots are very small but on the north side of the island there is a stretch of what might be called estates: larger homes on about an acre with old, wrought iron gated entrances. Down by the old harbor there are some old frame houses that may date to the 1920's. Most, like the boats, are beautifully maintained.

The majority of the houses look like south Florida when Eisenhower was president: smaller in size, concrete clock, bright pastel exteriors, tile roofs and crabgrass for lawns. I may have missed the lawn flamingos.

We went out again on Easter Sunday morning, less traffic, a safer drive. The Methodist Church has a small garden near the road which we visited. It was in some disrepair but there were these lilies (?) and some red flowering trees.

These are all named as separate islands but, when the tide is low, a person could walk across the flats from one to another. This is the flat between Spanish Wells and Russell Island.

There are several stores on Spanish Wells, enough for the population except for a liquor store. For that Carol had to take a ferry ride from Spanish Wells to the northern tip of Eleuthera, maybe a half mile from dock to dock. This is the very tip of the island.

We also drove over to the non-eponymous Russell Island which is quite a bit larger and almost undeveloped. There were some land clearing projects going on, maybe to support new homes.

So, here we sit on Easter Sunday; I wanted to leave this morning but others cautioned against that. They may have been right. It's not so much about the wind as the waves. On the north side of Spanish Wells is open ocean; call it the Northeast Providence Channel or the Atlantic Ocean. Regardless head east and you'll hit the Cape Verde Islands and then Africa. Right now the seas are running 5~9 feet between here and the Abacos. So, by Monday or Tuesday things may have settled down enough to head north. We might hire a pilot to take us out through the reef to the north; we might go back to Royal Island and leave from there.