Idiosyncracies of the Bahamas

View from inside cave at Rudder Cut Cay, looking back at our boat at anchor

We are very fond of the Bahamas not only for the beautiful water and islands, but also due to the culture, kindness and humor of the Bahamian people. The vast majority are knowledgeable, helpful, honest and generous with their time and resources. One of the real pleasures here is that it is so easy to see and explore the places we stop and to interact with the people who live here. When you are cruising on a boat rather than staying in a resort or hotel, you rely on the kindness of strangers – both local residents and other cruisers – for information, help with finding parts and supplies, and advice about the waters and the lands of the Bahamas Nation. Bahamians are used to the strange ways of cruisers and honestly seem to just want our experience to be as enjoyable as possible. We never feel like local people are trying to take advantage of these “rich” visitors on boats.

Below are a few examples of things that give a little insight into the culture, or are amusing, or just a bit interesting:

The immigration process – a finely oiled machine:

We got to spend some time in the Georgetown area with a friend of ours named Holt from our cruising time here two years ago. We were in the laundromat doing our laundry and Holt came in to drop his off. He was barefoot as many people are here. He mentioned that he was on his way to Immigration to renew his cruising permit. (When you first immigrate, you are only given a 90 day visa, but it can be renewed at least once usually.) About 10 min later Holt came back in and asked me what size shoe I wear, but decided mine would be too tight. He then said that Immigration would not talk to him unless he was wearing shoes. He walked back outside and apparently just started asking people who he thought looked like they were on boats to borrow their shoes and he did find a “donor”. He did not know this man prior to this. Amusingly this fellow had been in the laundromat earlier and I had noticed that he wore flip flops. When this guy came back in I noticed that he was now barefoot. With the borrowed flip-flops on his feet, our friend Holt went back to Immigration and was told he would have to come back after 3:30 as there was nobody there who could help him that morning. The time between him being told he needed shoes and going back with shoes was less than 20 minutes. There is no malice in the immigration behavior, I’m sure; it’s just very Bahamian. If you combine a very laid back culture with very bureaucratic government culture and processes you get some very strange behaviors.

If I Dump My Sewage at Night Nobody Will Notice:

The Georgetown harbor typically has between 200 and 300 boats anchored at any point in time. Many boaters race to Georgetown at the beginning of the “cruising season”, stay in the same place they anchor when they first arrive for 6 months, then go back home in June. Most will repeat the same cycle again each year. Once they find their anchor spot, they become very protective of it and would never think of leaving it lest another boat anchor there in their absence. Obviously if you live on a boat, you eat on the boat, and you pee and poop on the boat. The pee can go overboard, but the other must go into a “holding tank”. This is not normally a problem because boats that go other places can “dump” the holding tank while underway in the ocean or at least some distance from shore. But for people very attached to their “spot” in Georgetown, this is not an option because if they “up anchor” someone may come into the harbor and anchor there. These nasty people dump their tanks at night in the harbor! There is no way to hide the smell when someone near you is doing this nasty bit, and on any night there seems to be someone nearby who dumps their load of dumps. Granted there is a fair amount of water flowing in and out of the harbor as it is open to the ocean on both ends, but this is still gross, especially given that people swim in this water!

What should be done? Georgetown had, until a few years ago, a pump-out boat that would come around to the anchored boats and pump out the holding tanks onto the service boat for a small fee. From what I gather this was a successful enterprise. This is an obvious solution and solves the problem nicely while providing an income for the enterprising person who provides the service. However, the Georgetown pump-out boat sank in a storm and nobody has bothered to replace it. Whether this situation is due to culture, lack of financial resources or something else I do not know. What confounds me is why the residents who live here and whose prosperity is very dependent on Georgetown’s harbor being a lovely place for anchoring, swimming and visiting have not found a way to provide this service again.

So if you are looking to retire in the tropics and need a source of income, this could be the opportunity that you are looking for!

Whatever the Supply Ship Brings In Is What You Get

One weekend all public activities at Georgetown included hamburger cookouts. Everybody had hamburgers to spare. For example there were fundraisers for the humane society and the local sailing club that had hamburgers. Hamburger was plentiful and on sale in the markets as well. It turns out that the supply boat, for unknowable reasons, came loaded with lots of cheap hamburger patties that week. It is sort of quaint and endearing that activities center around what is available on the weekly supply boat.

An Impressive Women-Owned Business

An impressive establishment is the Georgetown Laundromat. This is run by 2 local women and it works like the proverbial well-oiled machine. Some people do their own laundry and others drop theirs off and the women do it for an extra fee. These women know who is waiting for machines by name and seemingly know the status of what is in every machine all the time. When you go in, they ask your name and write it down. MB had been in the laundromat once and then two and a half weeks later went in again and the owner remembered her name! Watching them work is like seeing a ballet. Constant motion, never a wasted step, and never in each other’s way. They have 8 to 10 washers and about the same number of dryers. There are times when we wonder about the work ethic in the Bahamas, and while there may be some truth in that, most businesses are run well and employees are motivated and helpful. The women at this laundromat, however, work to an even higher standard.

Renting a Car

In Long Island in the southern Bahamas, where we are as I write this, exploring the island is a fun thing to do. The island is well-named since it is about 80 miles long, and four miles wide at its widest point. A car is needed to explore the highlights. We decided to rent a car and spend a day exploring. As per normal, we were unable to raise the car rental people via phone or radio, so we decided to head to shore anyway and just stop by and see if they had a car available.

When we got to the dinghy dock there was another cruiser about to climb into his dinghy. We confirmed with him that we were in the right place, and then he told us that there was no one there since the owner had decided to go fishing for the day. However, he had just returned a car and had left the key in it, so he called the owner and asked if we could just take that car for the day. They said that was fine. So we walked to the car and off we went.

Now compare this to renting a car in the US: The car people here did not even know our names, had no credit card on file, have not seen my driver’s license, don’t know where we are going, have no idea what we look like or when we are bringing the car back and we have just driven off in one of their cars! I figured that there would surely be some paperwork when we returned it, but there was not. I just handed a woman $75 and went my merry way. It is sad that as an American I am so used to not trusting others that when I run into a business that assumes honesty and integrity in their customers it is quite a shock. It’s refreshing to know that there are still places where the assumption is that people are good and honest. And besides that, given this is an island, we could only go so far in the car if we decided to steal it!

St Mary the Virgin Anglican Church ruins, though to be the oldest church in the Bahamas, built in the 1600's by the Spanish

The Shrimp Hole, located behind the church ruins. It was a small cave with tons of little red shrimp

Deans Blue Hole, the world's second deepest blue hole at 666 ft deep. We snorkeled in it, but it was pretty silty so you couldn't see much along the vertical walls.

Keeping the Roads Safe

In our driving exploration we got introduced to Bahamian road signage. The first thing to know is that there is really only one road in Long Island and it runs from the southern tip to the northern tip. We are roughly in the middle where we are anchored in Thompson Bay. There are many little “towns” along the way and also many side roads – mostly dirt. The road goes by homes, schools, and small businesses.

When you approach one of these towns, there is invariably a 20 mph sign. This is smart given that there are schools, churches and shops in these towns. However there is never a sign for when normal speed can be resumed. But I guess that’s ok since there were no signs for what the “normal” speed limit is either!

My very favorite, however, is the speed bumps we encountered. On a side road a homeowner had posted a speed bump sign and laid two lengths of very heavy rope across the road. Those were the speed bumps! Simple and effective!

Atypical road on Long Island (the pot holes are missing here!)

Hitch Hiking

Hitch hiking is an accepted and safe way to get around in the Bahamas. People almost always stop to pick people up and are normally happy to go out of their way to get you where you need to be. This speaks volumes about the Bahamian culture. People trust each other, enjoy meeting people, and are usually happy to make a new acquaintance. Earlier this week, we were exchanging stories about what we had been doing that day with some friends. They were running low on cash so the man had hitchhiked 30 miles down to the one ATM on the island. When he got there, he found that it was broken….Not much to do but shrug your shoulders and hitch home.

Laundry in Long Island

When we were here two years ago, we were able to do our laundry at a lovely local beach bar/restaurant with very good food named Tiny’s. It was very convenient to get the laundry started in their two machines, go order some lunch and by the time you were finished your meal, your laundry was done. Yesterday, we gathered up our smelly clothes and dinghied over to the restaurant. Unfortunately there was an "out of order" sign on the laundry door. They thought it might be fixed in a week or two.

We asked around for other options but no one knew of another option except for a laundromat about 35 minutes away by car. Sigh, if we had only realized this the day before when we had rented the car. We called the Tourism office to see if they had any other ideas. The only two places were at either end of this long island, but in typical Bahamian fashion, the young lady at the Tourism office started calling people to see if she could find us an alternative. The next morning, we got a call from a woman who owns a guesthouse who would let us use her washer and dryer for a small fee and she was within dinghy distance! We sat out in the shade on her beach, reading and relaxing in front of the beautiful view while our clothes washed and dried.

View of Thompson Bay from our "laundromat"

The Long Island Resort of Stella Maris

Just the name, Stella Maris, conjures up images of opulent homes, manicured lawns, cute boutique shops and stunning views. Mary Beth was excited to see this part of the island which is at the northern end. There is a small town named Stella Maris just before we reached the resort, but it was nothing special. In fact, we missed it the first time through.

The resort, it turns out, is mostly an extensive network of dirt roads which were probably created decades ago and there is nary a house to be seen on most of them. It is, however, a great place to get lost since they are all unnamed and they look exactly the same except for their large puddles, each of which required a unique and well-thought-out strategy to avoid a tragic drowning incident since our small car was at risk of sinking. Though the inland roads are empty there are many beautiful homes on the ocean cliffs. These people have stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean with spectacular crashing surf right below their homes.

Summary

None of the above is intended to be critical. While these, and many other things, are different from home, that is the charm of the Islands. Ropes for speed bumps – works fine, holds up well, is inexpensive – why not? No “resume speed” signs – if you are too dumb to know when you are out of the town then you probably shouldn’t be driving and couldn’t read the sign anyway. Car rental paperwork – It’s an island; where are you going to go?

In summary, this Long Island is a great place to spend some time. There is good weather protection in beautiful Thompson Bay, nice people on boats and on shore, enough services to get staples and even some boat parts. There is even a "cruisers Beach" where cruisers can gather for happy hour and a bonfire at night. Some cruisers when they give up the boat, even buy property here and build a house. One of these people who has moved ashore moderates the morning radio cruiser’s net here, has a house up on the hill overlooking Thompson Bay and can see the boats coming and going and still feel part of the cruising community. She helps cruisers find all of the services they want and need.

Long Island is a great place to be!

Thanks for reading!

David & Mary Beth