ROCK SOUND – EXPLORING SOUTHERN ELEUTHERA

ROCK SOUND and CAPE ELEUTHERA – February 5, 2019

After leaving Hatchet Bay, our next destination was Rock Sound. Rock Sound is a large and mostly protected harbor on the southern end of Eleuthera. It is a big enough population center for the town to have a large grocery, a bank, and a hardware store. The area is also famous for its very large blue hole known as “Ocean Hole” which has been made into a community park located right in the middle of town!

Rock Sound would be about a 35 mile run. While we needed to get there ahead of the next cold front in a couple days, we had an extra day for exploration. We decided to break up the trip with a stop at the Pineapple Cays, about half way along our route. Allegedly, the little village here had a restaurant that was known to have some of the best pizza in the Bahamas. Now, as many know, I am from the Boston area and could definitely be labelled as a pizza snob. Let’s face it…South Florida and most of the southern islands I have lived on or visited have craptastic pizza, so I didn’t have high hopes. We dinghied to shore and walked through the quaint, sleepy, mostly residential village. We found the restaurant and were excited to treat ourselves to some pizza (not something we cook on the boat). The lone employee, Laverne, assured us that the crust was home-made and the pizza was going to be delicious; we ordered up a large pie so we could have leftovers. To my surprise, the pizza was actually pretty damn good!
We upped the anchor early the next morning so we could get tucked into the anchorage at Rock Sound by lunchtime. It was a beautiful sail down and we got anchored up in the north end of the sound just a couple hundred yards from a cool little restaurant and bar called Frigates which happened to have the only dinghy dock in town. The owner, Gino, was very friendly to cruisers; happy to let people tie up to his dock for access to town. He also had a special for cruisers at his bar…$20 for 6 Sands beers! That is about half of what most Bahamian bars charge for beer! The main bartender, Nathan, was also an awesome guy and we enjoyed many a “6 for $20” special at the bar with him during the week we were anchored here. Life got even better as I found out that Nathan was a Patriots fan (probably the fourth or fifth native Bahamian I have met who is a Pats fan) and would have the Super Bowl live on all the televisions with the sound on! I had not known where we would be, or if I would get to see the game, so this was a big bonus! Oh, and in case you missed it….we WON.

The Saturday before the SuperBowl, we found out that the town was hosting an island-wide children’s Junkanoo competition. Many of the schools from all over the island would be performing a Junkanoo march through town. The kids costumes and routines were nothing short of amazing. The amount of time and work that they must have put into their costumes and choreography cannot be understated. It was beautiful. Junkanoo’s origins are debated, but it is basically a street parade and festival where elaborate, themed costumes are created and dances are choreographed to music dominated by goat-skin drums, whistles, and cowbells. Even for their young age, these kids have an impressive musical talent which is fostered heavily in their Bahamian culture.

The next day was all about getting ready for the major cold front and the associated wind and weather that would be arriving soon. We followed the lead of our friends on SV Holiday and moved across the harbor to an area which in theory would be more protected from the strong winds that were coming. Our preparations paid off…the wind and rain were even stronger than forecast. We had about 2 hours of excitement where the rain was so hard we could not see any of the other boats near us and were bouncing around in 2-3 ft. rolling waves. This was made the more disconcerting as another boater had anchored very close to us…and of course, upwind! This meant if he dragged his anchor, it was likely that he would be on top of us before anyone had time to react. Thankfully, all was well and the storm passed. It was still windy for the remainder of the day, so we stayed on the isolated side of the island until the next day, when we motored back over to anchor off of Frigates Bar to ensure more “6 for $20s” (hey, priorities people).

That morning, we were shocked to find a dead squid on the deck! He was apparently not able to find his way back to the water in the night after jumping up on deck for whatever reason. He had spewed his ink everywhere…it was a mess. But the cool thing Celia noticed was that he was still actively changing colors on part of his body. Apparently, his chromataphores (cells that contain pigment and reflect light allowing an animal to “change color”) were still firing even though he was clearly dead. So cool to get a closeup of that! We were sorry that he ended his watch on our deck, but he certainly would make good bait.

Rock Sound is on the protected west side of Eluethera. The east side is open to the Atlantic and has some beautiful beaches. Although it would be a few miles of trekking, we decided to walk through town to the Ocean Hole and then make our way to the beaches on the other side of the island. The Ocean Hole was impressive in its own right and uniquely situated right in the middle of town. However, the few times we walked by it, there was never anyone there using the park or swimming in the blue hole…it seemed more oddity than attraction. It was on to the beach! About 2/3 of the way down the long dusty road, we realized it was very hot and we had not provisioned enough water to last the day. Just then, up pulls Miss Rosie coming home from church in her Sunday finest. She pulled alongside and insisted the four sweaty tourists should pile in her little Toyota so she could give us a ride the rest of the way to the beach. Not only that, but we could access the beach from her property where she runs a little restaurant and refill our water bottles there! (See Celia’s previous post to learn more about Miss Rosie and her magical little piece of Paradise.) We’re not sure how long she will be doing her thing there, so if you are ever in the area, it is a must do to at least have her cook for you while you lounge on her amazing beachfront, if not rent one of her cottages and stay there doing a whole lot of nothing for a few days.

Celia had been researching the island and came across a Research Center and Marine Science Education Center that seemed like quite a diverse and thriving program located on the southwestern tip of the island called Cape Eluethera. We read about all the interesting programs they conducted there and got really excited to see if we could find a way to get down to Cape Eleuthera and take a tour. As Celia and I have both worked many years in the marine science world, we put it out on Facebook to see if we had any connections there. Sure enough, the facility where Celia and I first met (NHMI-Seacamp in Big Pine Key) had an alumni who was a program manager there. We got in touch with Miss Liz Slingsby and our timing was perfect. She was ‘on island’ and the facility was in between program sessions. This meant she would be able to take some time and give us a VIP tour…perfect! We rented a car from a man known as “Friendly Bob” who dropped off a little 2WD mini-SUV that had seen better days. The roads of the Bahamas are in pretty rough shape and the vehicles certainly show it. The front end was a little loose, one of the tires was low on air, and the exhaust blew gas fumes into the cab…but it seemed like it would serve the purpose. And with a handshake cash deal, this seemed more than adequate. Plus, Friendly Bob just said to leave the car in Frigates parking lot with the key in the visor “anytime tomorrow”. Wow, you don’t get that deal at Hertz!

So off we went to the Cape Eleuthera Institute and Island School. What an impressive facility! Located in an isolated section of the island, they have access to many pristine and varied natural areas in which they conduct their scientific and school-based programs. There are three separate programs operating at the facility. The Cape Eleuthera Institute is a fairly typical Research Field Station for resident and visiting scientists, grad students, and the like. The second program is called The Island School. This is an experiential marine science education program for middle and high school students. Most of the students come from outside the Bahamas and stay for a full semester on site as a replacement to their traditional curriculum. They also have extensive programs for local students. The third part of the facility is the Sustainability Initiative which consists of a group of engineer-types who design, implement, and experiment with different sustainability projects and programs on the large site with its many buildings and unique infrastructure. The three programs share the site, both residentially and professionally, in what feels like a communal living atmosphere. There are approximately 120 staff members, volunteers, and long-term scientists on site which made the place feel vibrant and full even though there were not many programs taking place or visitors on site.
Program Manager Liz Slingsby was amazingly generous with her time and she gave us a wonderful tour of the facilities and overview of their programs. Highlights included their protected marina and fleet of dive and research boats, bio-diesel program (all of their vehicles run on it; they process it on site from used cooking oil donated by a cruise ship company), research lab facilities, dining hall facility, and even a beautiful beach. Most impressive however, was the large aquaculture and hydroponics project. It is a closed-system process in which they grow tilapia (fish) in tanks which are part of the menu on site, and they in turn fertilize the hydroponic system which grows some of the vegetables (lettuce, herbs, etc) that they serve in the dining hall as well. They also raise chickens for eggs on a fairly large scale. They keep a handful of pigs who eat the compost from the dining hall and have an annual slaughter for the kids to experience. Pretty damn cool! Celia even managed to sweet talk the farm manager into letting us have several fresh heads of lettuce! Score! (Of course, had there been students on site, this would not have been possible!) Overall, a pretty amazing place! We were invited to join the staff for lunch in the dining hall. Cruisers will normally never turn down an offer to not have to cook on the boat! They served up the best “Camp Dining Hall” food I think I have ever had. Thanks so much to Liz for being such a gracious host.

One of our other missions for renting a car was to check out a spot called Lighthouse Point Beach. We’d heard stories of needing a 4×4, or “sturdy with high clearance” to safely navigate the road to this remote location on the very southern tip of Eleuthera. Our rental didn’t quite meet all the requirements and we almost chickened out. However, before leaving the Island School, the staff said it was one of the most beautiful spots on the island and we should make the effort…and so we did.

It was, shall we say…an adventure. The dirt road started out benign enough, but before long I was in full off-road mode; navigating steep inclines and slowly straddling big washouts and potholes that would swallow an elephant. Carefully driving over large rocks and scraping branches down the sides of the car, we emerged after about 45 minutes onto a soft sand road with grass growing down the middle of the two tire tracks. Where the heck were we?! But as we crested a small hill, we were rewarded for our efforts by a magnificent view of the area. We could see a 270 degree view of both the calm Exuma Bank on one side and the mighty Atlantic on the other. On the Bank side, there were several idyllic crescent beaches and on the Atlantic side, a long beach stretched beyond our view. Between was Lighthouse Point, with you guessed it, a rustic light house on the point of an impressive, high craggy bluff. We came down the hill into a little parking area and were surprised to see about a dozen cars there! Most of them were of the 4×4 or “sturdy high clearance” variety but it was still shocking to think others had attempted such as challenging road. Despite the small crowd…it was a huge area with hiking trails and plenty of beach to spread out from the few other people we actually saw.

We hiked up to the lighthouse and contemplated life on the point for a bit before heading down to the beach. We wished we could have made a whole day of this adventure; it was one of the most stunning places we have visited in the Bahamas over the last two seasons. As late afternoon wore on, we figured with our crappy car (that already had a half flat tire), it was probably a good idea not to be the last people driving out of this remote place.

On the way out, we came to an intersection we had passed on the way in. We decided to look at Google Maps to see where that road lead to since we noticed we had a couple bars of service out here on a hill. Turns out, that was the normal route to get here. Instead of the 45 minutes of harrowing off-road navigation, this alternate route only had about 10 minutes of off-roading before dumping you out on the ‘normal’ crappy paved roads. Ha! We had taken the difficult path. Oh well…it was a “Boat Monkey Adventure” all the way!
On the ride back to Rock Sound, we were feeling pretty damn grateful for all the great people we had met and wonderful places we had visited. We stopped at a small local straw market where there were 3 generations of women creating and selling their straw work including hand woven bags, baskets, and dolls, . Celia bought a little handbag after getting a little lesson from the grandmother on their craftsmanship.

Back at the boat, we started planning our next move south. Rock Sound, much like the rest of Eleuthera had treated us very well and we would be sad to leave. The next day, we checked out more local caves (caves are everywhere here and they are all so unique and beautiful), and did our last little bit of provisioning. Next up was a return to the Exumas Land and Sea Park; a stretch of islands protected as a National Park. We looked forward to seeing some of the areas we missed last year or lingering longer in some of our favorites.

As some of you may know already, we are actually back in the US at this time (March 15). We did not make it as far, or for as long, as we had wished. But our family is going through a difficult time right now and their need for help outweighs our desire to sail around for the rest of the season being boat bums. Family first always…so we’re retooling a bit. The good news is that the one thing we do have at the moment is a little extra time. That time will be spent with our families this summer and fall helping with care and figuring out our next chapter. Until then, Boat Monkey has a few Adventures left to tell. Next up is a return trip to Warderick Wells and Staniel Cay in the Exumas so keep an eye out for those tales soon.

With Love and Gratitude, Todd, Celia, and Boat Monkey
S/V Eileen

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