ELEUTHERA, the Bahamas -On my first visit to the Bahamas, I walked down the ramp of a cruise ship into crowds of tourists, barking straw vendors and streets lined with jewelry shops and perfume outlets in Nassau. Hours later, after too much rum on a raucous party boat, I stumbled back up the ramp bewildered.
On this visit though, I skipped the crowds and casinos and lively nightlife to hop through the lesser-known Out Islands – a getaway from the getaway. And again, I left the Bahamas intoxicated – except this time it wasnﾴt on booze.
Although an eclectic bunch has made the Out Islands a playground over the years – from pirates to socialites and adventurers such as Jacques Cousteau – the islands have stayed true to their natural beauty and laid-back charm. Gritty but somehow glamorous. Rugged yet chic. The Out Islands arenﾴt about manmade magic. They create plenty on their own.
My favorite on a recent visit was Eleuthera; it had me smitten.
Bouncing in a van down the only main road, kept company by hardly more than potholes, palms and pink bougainvillea vines, Ray Harrison of the Eleuthera Tourist Office spoke about keeping the place protected from fast-food chains and high-rise hotels. Rather than 1,000 rooms in a tower, he said he wants to keep 1,000 rooms spread along the landscape.
“You get up at 7 or 8 in the morning, and your footprints are the first in the sand. We want to maintain a sense of underdevelopment,” Harrison said. “We love the traffic and congestion on the island,” he deadpanned.
A skinny strip of banana-shaped land, Eleuthera is 100 miles long and just about 2 miles wide.
At its narrowest point over the Glass Window Bridge, there’s just room for one car to pass. Underneath, the wild deep blue of the Atlantic on the east thunders and sprays against cliffs up to 70 feet; while on the west, the Exuma Sound shimmers calm and green like an old-fashioned Coke bottle.
Farther down a gravel side road among fields of fragrant thyme shrubs, my companions and I visited Preacher’s Cave, a soaring limestone cavern where the island’s first settlers took refuge in 1648 after a shipwreck at the Devil’s Backbone, a strip of risky reefs. The adventurers had fled Bermuda in search of religious freedom – hence the name Eleuthera, which means freedom in Greek – and stumbled upon it at this natural cathedral where they held services. A tiny path from the cave leads through brush to a beach near the wreck site. Underwater, the seamen’s nightmare is today a diverﾴs dream.
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By: By Jennifer Justus/ Special to the Boston Herald
