We spent four nights in Hatchet Bay/Alice Town, in northern Eleuthera. This is an extremely protected body of water with a very narrow entrance. It looks more difficult than it is. There were about a dozen others anchored when we came in and another ten showed up within the next 24 hours, in anticipation of the predicted 20 knots of wind on Friday. We arrived Thursday (Feb 29).
Alice Town was pretty much the same as we remembered - a little shabby with a rundown dinghy dock, but very friendly. Emmett's enterprises - bar & grill, small grocery store, car rental - is still there, but he doesn't scoop ice cream anymore. Ice cream is available as sandwiches, bars, and a small selection of pints in the grocery store freezer. We had hamburgers and fries there on Friday night, after the windstorm blew itself out.
One of Dan's desires for this trip was to revisit the caves we'd stumbled upon eight years ago. On Saturday morning (March 2) we headed out, equipped with flashlights and water. We remembered it was quite a walk from town. The landscape sort of looked the same - scrubby farmland, old silos. I'd looked up our blog from eight years ago, and we knew to look for the twin silos that marked the entrance road that led to the caves. After about an hour's walk we found the twin silos. But no road. Not even a path. Huh. We decided to keep walking and remarked that we didn't remember the beach so close to the road. When we got to the sign informing us we were at restricted community of Rainbow Bay, we knew we'd gone too far. We were on the Queen's Highway - the only major road that traveled the length of Eleuthera - so we hadn't taken a wrong turn. Coincidentally the 16th annual Bahamas Hope Challenge was taking place on this road, and many bicyclists and a few joggers were passing us. We caught the attention of one woman walking her bike up the hill and she told us, yes the caves were by the twin silos, just look for the "red road" and the sign. She also told us the Challenge was to raise money for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
So we turned around to walk back to those twin silos, wondering how we could have missed our destination. On the way we saw wild cotton, reminders of the times when British loyalists tried to establish plantations in the Bahamas, after they'd fled the Carolinas during the Revolutionary war. They never did make a go of it - Bahamian soil and climate just aren't conducive to that kind of landed gentry life - but the reminders are all around: ruins, like the silos, volunteer seedlings, like the cotton plants, and the population - 80% are descended from the black slaves brought here to work the land for the plantation owners.
When we reached the silos, we searched for that red road, but found only one leading to the area dump. We did find cell service - which had been very spotty all throughout Hatchet Bay and Alice Town - and a Google search showed us the caves lay on the other side of town. Somehow we had walked to the south on Queen's Highway, instead of the north. We walked at least 6 miles on Saturday.
Sunday morning we tried again. This time we disembarked at a small launch ramp instead of the town landing, so we knew for sure which way north was. About ten minutes into our walk Emmett came along and asked us if we wanted a ride. Sure, we said. He chattered the whole way to the caves - whuch did have a sign pointing down the red road, directly across from the twin silos. "I'll be damned." Dan said when we saw them. Who would have thought there would be two sets of twin silos anout equidistant from Alice Town on the Queen's Highway?
Instead of dropping us off, Emmett offered to take us to his farm for a tour. We jumped at the chance. He drove on for another half-mile and turned down another red road. He has quite the farm and a lot of plans for expansion. He sells produce to the local restaurants. In fact, he produced a couple of knives and bags and put us to work for the restaurant Front Porch. I filled a bag with arugula and Dan cut a bag's worth of parsely. Emmett proudly showed off his peppers and pineapples and pumpkins, yanked a few carrots from the ground and gave them to us, along with a cucumber. Then he looked at the time and hustled us back into the car. He had people waiting to rent this car, he said, and he was late meeting them. He dropped us off at the entrance road to the caves and sped off. 
We ate one of the carrots as a snack, took off our sunglasses and donned our headlights and went down into the cave. This cave goes on for at least a mile, but we weren't feeling that adventurous. We picked our way through the treacherous and sometimes damp footing until we reached a point where it was pretty wet and decided to turn around. The walls were covered with people's names, with some dates listed as early as 1890. When we got back to the entrance, we met the people who had rented Emmett's car. Dan hoped if we dawdled on the way home, they'd come along and offer us a ride, but we ended up making it back on our own. We probably walked at least 10 miles this weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment