Patricia Green Cellars Blog

Notes on Jim's time in the Bahamas!

Eleuthera Island, Bahamas

We vacationed on Eleuthera Island from March 13th-17th of 2009. While attempting to find some information about Eleuthera mostly what we got were some websites that had a little bit of information about certain places to stay, businesses, etc. but not tons of real specific information about what the experience would be like. We found a couple of people who had been there recently and had enough discussion with them that made it sound like some place right up our alley. So I thought I would write about our impressions for people perhaps thinking about Eleuthera as a vacation spot. Or perhaps you just want to read about me going on vacation to an island paradise.

The big question would be: Is Eleuthera for you? I guess anywhere one goes has to be able to answer that question but there is certainly a special case for Eleuthera in that regard. I mean with, say, Paris you would need to know if you like big, European, incredibly cosmopolitan cities known for food, art, fashion, shopping and history. Pretty easy. You either want to go there or you don’t. There are lots of places with great beaches in this world. I suppose there are people that don’t so much care for a wonderful beach regardless of where it is so this would not matter to them. Eleuthera has great beaches. So does Mexico, Hawaii, Belize, etc. With Eleuthera what you are going for is the beaches. This is one remote spot to get to and when you get there you know you are in a remote spot.

There aren’t a lot of services on Eleuthera. I take that back. If you go up to Harbour Island there probably are. If you are looking for info regarding that part of Eleuthera you can stop reading. We didn’t go there. We met a few locals who had never been there or only had been there once. It is, along with Spanish Wells, quite, quite different than the rest of the island. Okay, so we are back to Eleuthera not having a lot of services. It doesn’t. There is one golf course (and I heard not such great things about it), only a handful of restaurants, not much in the way of shopping and, other than the beaches, nothing much in the way of sight-seeing.

In fact, Eleuthera itself is pretty ugly. It is basically a rock covered in scrub with the occasional salt flat thrown in. It just happens to be ringed with some of the great beaches in the world (and allegedly has unreal bonefish fishing and sport fishing). There is a quite a lot of run down development, shacky looking places, cars on blocks and terrible roads. Even the nice, operating places have a sort of rundown looking exterior to them sometimes. This sort of look can make some people feel uncomfortable or turned off. On Eleuthera it is what it is. Driving from place to place you are, without question, going to encounter all of this stuff.

So, why would you want to go here? Well, the beaches are really amazing. Really amazing. It is the quintessential photo of a beach with white/pink sand leading into an ocean with clear, emerald, turquoise, blue, green striped water. These beaches are shockingly beautiful and, in most cases, incredibly pristine.

Aside from the beaches though I think there are a couple of things that make this place appealing. One is that American culture hasn’t gotten around to sullying this island yet. I’m all for most of the culture we have here and I’m not complaining about it but, for instance, when we went to Kauai, Hawaii it was very clear we were in America. There were McDonald’s, Burger Kings, Safeway’s, etc. That’s fine but it does take away a bit from the “island paradise” sort of angle. Eleuthera has none of that stuff at this point. Things are on the rougher, more local side. That’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But if you are willing to live with a rougher hewn set of services, options and whatnot there is an incredible amount of charm that goes along with the beautiful beaches.

There is also an incredibly friendly, relaxed air to the experience. People are very nice and the nature of things is very “yes” oriented. I think we get caught up assuming that the answer to most questions in the nature of “Can I do this?” in America ends up being “No” or “Not really” or “Not exactly” or “Not unless you are a member/pay for it” or something like that. In Eleuthera the answer is more likely to be “Sure.” As long as you have the slightest modicum of sense of place and are not completely self-absorbed so that you can be aware of the situation you are likely to get exactly what you want or be offered even more than you hoped.

We found that the lack of crowdedness (there weren’t lots of tourists there at all), the rustic quality of the setting and the pleasant atmosphere made for a very, very relaxing, peaceful and very contentment-enducing state.

Some things to know: You can use my recommendations which are pretty specific. This site is quite useful as well: http://www.discover-eleuthera-bahamas.com/index.html.

Getting There: It was not especially easy to find a DIRECT flight into any of Eleuthera’s airports (North Eleuthera, Governor’s Harbour, Rock Sound) but we did eventually find a flight on Twin Air. Flights through Nassau generally consisted of an 11 hour or so layover. You might want to look at Bahama Air. On Twin Air you are on a 6 passenger job that sounds like a lawn mower. If that sort of shit makes you nervous (it makes me nervous) then you need an alternative. Mostly the ride is smooth (at least when we went but clearly if you hit some weather it could be bumpy) but when you get over land it does get pretty turbulent. I have what would be known as a super low tolerance for turbulence but I survived. It takes around 90-120 minutes from Ft. Lauderdale Airport (which, apparently, is easier to get to the Bahamas from as opposed to Miami International). There is also a ferry that I think takes about 4 hours but does not run all days. That could be fun.

Cars and roads: You will need a car. Unless you are completely committed to exactly where you are staying and have no interest in going anywhere else you will need a car. Car rentals on this island are a little different than the rest of the world. We got off the plane and were told to ask for McClain’s car. No ID, no driver’s license, no credit card, you get the picture. Perhaps it is possible to rent a decent car as you do sometimes see them on the roads but likely you will be driving something that is old, weathered, squeaky and likely less reliable than you would like. While this may seem vacation-y and fine (we were fine with it) you do need to factor in that if you are driving around and something happens such as the car not starting when you are out in the middle of nowhere who are you going to call? That is just the reality of things.

The other factor is the road(s). Queen’s Highway is the main drag up and down the island. At its best points it is an okay country road. At its worst it is a pothole laden overly thin stretch of seemingly forgotten pathway. We hit one of said yawning potholes on Day 1 and got a flat. We drove more carefully after than but driving at night (there are no street lights) makes for a new challenge when someone is coming toward you and you cannot see the road (or potential hazards) for several seconds. Roads off of Queen’s Highway to get to beaches are nearly uniformly not paved, extremely uneven and often not passable without a higher sitting, 4 wheel drive type vehicle. Fortunately most roads to the beach are pretty short so you can park and hike it in.

Directions: For an island with only 1 real road this would seem like less of a problem than it is. However side roads are often not marked (they definitely are not marked on the maps even if they are marked in real life) and even if they are it does not appear that many people actually know the names of these side roads. Directions such as “turn left at the white and yellow house” are fairly common and then they don’t necessarily follow up with “and when you get down that road park at the first road off of it to the right to get to the beach.” We did a lot of backtracking and poking around to figure out where we were and exactly where we wanted to go. If this kind of stuff bothers you then you will either need some therapy before you go or to purchase the book The Elusive Beaches of Eleuthera and own a GPS unit as that book gives GPS coordinates for the turn-off spots. Also, things (such as businesses) are sometimes known by local, colloquial names but actually have different names in reality. This is a minor issue but it does come up.

Cell Phone Service: I hear that AT&T works there. I wouldn’t know. I have Sprint. I had a bar or two in a couple of places but not enough to receive e-mail and texts or go on the web for anything more than the Google home page. Then again, do you really want to get e-mails? There are a couple of Internet Cafes. Didn’t use them but they do exist. It is funny that you will actually see pay phones here and there (sometimes in the middle of nowhere) so you can buy phone cards if you are really hankering to make calls.

Booze: Beer is expensive. Double the price of beer in the states. Liquor is cheap. Less than 2/3rds what you would pay here. A full liter of Stoli, for instance, goes for less than $15. Even local beers are $2.50-$3.00/each retail. Liquor stores are quite common and surprisingly well appointed in several instances.

Restaurants: For where we were there seem to be about 8 places that we either went to or heard good things about. They are (from north to south starting at Gregory Town and ending in Governour’s Harbour) Laughing Lizard (good sandwiches, supposedly a star hang out place), Elvina’s, DD’s Internet Café, Rainbow Inn (good food and more steak choices than anywhere else on the island), Cocodimama’s (excellent Italian food with emphasis on seafood-tremendous calamari), Sunset Bar, Beach House (great drinks, patio, did not actually eat here), Tippy’s (huge menu done very nicely, good steak, pizza, fish, fried stuff, great atmosphere). Again, we did not go to Harbour Island way up on the north end of Eleuthera. In theory I would assume that there are good places there. Also toward the south there is a town that specializes in conch. We did not get down that far this time. For a more comprehensive listing check out this site

discover-eleuthera-bahamas.com/eleuthera-restaurants.html

Shopping: Perhaps on Harbour Island there is tons of it. Not so much elsewhere. The grocery store in Governor’s Harbour is passable but very rudimentary. Other “grocery” stores often contain very little depending on the time of the week you go there. We did find Mangarines (cross between a Mandarin orange and a tangerine and insanely delcious) at one of said little grocery stores so you never know. Ice is a here and there item but generally not too terribly tough to find.

Beaches: A General Statement: There are lots of beaches on Eleuthera. Even on the very detailed map there are beaches that they haven’t bothered to mark that in other parts of the world would be considered gems. Not all beaches are easy to get to (see the section on Cars and Roads) but they are worth it. If you have been to Mexico or, well, lots of other places in the world and are fairly used to beaches with amenities such as beachside bars well get used to that not being on Eleuthera. Pack your own stuff in (and for god’s sake pack it out). We would pack a cooler with ice, a couple of beers and enough rum and mixer for however long we were going to be staying at whatever beach we were going to. These are remote places so you need to supply your own. Generally you don’t have to walk too far so it’s hardly a big deal. On some of these little roads to get to the beaches it can be hard to figure out exactly where to go and park. There is stalled development all over the island and often times what looks like driveways are driveways to houses that have not been built so parking in the drive is not a big deal. You sort of have to get the feel for it or park and check things out and move if you feel like there is a better place to go once you have looked around.

You are not supposed to topless/nude sunbathe on Eleuthera. Technically they have a statute against it. However as long as you are aware of the situation in which you find yourself and you act accordingly you should be fine, in most cases, to strip down however much you choose and bathe away. There are so many beaches and so few people (relatively) that often times you will be the only people on the beach. As long as you have any sense at all you’re fine.

I would mention that finding a spot with shade is a good idea. It never got above about 85 when we were there but it feels hotter in the sense that the sun is so super-intense that in the afternoon even die-hard sun bathers will start to feel the effects. There are just a lot of UV rays zipping around and it feels like you’re getting fried. There are often times trees along the edge of the mostly fairly narrow beaches and parking yourselves near one so you can go back and forth is not a bad idea.

Snorkeling off the beaches is probably less easy than advertised at least in my experience. If you are hot to trot for it you can go to the sides of the beaches where it turns to rock and go along there or if you are a good, confident swimmer you could go WAY out from the beach and likely find stuff. Hawaii is a breeze to snorkel off beaches. Eleuthera has lots of beautiful, clear, shallow water with little to nothing in it off their beaches.

Beaches We Went To:

• Alabaster Bay: It would be hard to put into words how beautiful this beach is with the sun fully overhead on it. This is a drop dead gorgeous stretch of sand that looks like the length of a good sized par 5. The water is crystal clear and there is a long, shallow stretch that goes out about 150-200 yards in which the water is never more than about 10 feet deep and rarely that deep at all. It was exceedingly calm, so much so that the water literally just laps at the shoreline making for a very serene and quiet sounding place. There is also the benefit of having Cocodimama’s Resort and Restaurant right there making it one of the few beaches with an amenity on it. There was only a couple of people actually staying at the resort (it’s a 12 room resort) so the high water mark for people on the beach was about 10 at one point. We ate both lunch and dinner there despite having intentions to do a couple of other things that day. It just wasn’t worth leaving. The food was terrific: Fantastic calamari, a great special of mako shark, good sandwiches, a lovely mackerel special at dinner and really good pastas, too. They also have a fine little wine list. The drinks were excellent and the service super friendly. There are also several little paylapas down on the beach providing shading opportunities. While I assume they are designed for guests of the inn we had no problem with using one pretty much all day. We were rewarded with an absolutely fantastic sunset. This is just south of the GH airport so occasionally a plane takes off overhead but that was the only disturbance we experienced. We did get to see the rooms at Cocodimama’s and they looked wonderful, clean and airy.
• Ten Bay Beach: This is a little gem south of GH. There are a couple of built houses and some failed development there as well so I guess there might be a chance of some people staying in the 3-4 houses on the south side of the beach (maybe they rent them too, they would be worth looking into) but there were only 7 other people while we were there. Similar to Alabaster in that there is a long, very shallow stretch of water that makes this a very flat, calm bay. Quite serene. The sand is especially soft on this beach.
• Club Med Beach: I don’t know why it’s called that. There is nothing that really resembles Club Med up there but there are some of the swankiest homes and condos we saw in our time there on that beach. This is also the home of the Beach House and Tippy’s. This is on the Atlantic side of the island just outside of GH. Definitely a bit choppier in terms of the water on this side and there probably is some decent snorkeling to be had fairly close off the beach if one is an experienced snorkeller that could handle some chop while in and amongst some reef. Clearly having these two very good, fun bars right there adds to the overall climate of this beach however there is some garbage on the beach as well as a fair amount of washed up sea grass which both detract from the aesthetic quality as well as the getting around in bare feet quality of the environment. It is most likely more windy over here as well on an average basis.
• Gaulding Cay: This is near the very north end of South Eleuthera just shy of the Glass Window Bridge (an impressively beautiful and awesome piece of real estate where one can see the Caribbean and Atlantic sides of the isle simultaneously). We were the only 2 people on the beach the whole time we were there although there are a few houses on the way down the road and on the beach itself. This is a little less guarded by shallow water and a bit more exposed to the open water than the first two beaches. The water is pure turquoise blue with a little bit of chop to it. There is likely decent snorkeling at the south end or for those willing to go off shore a bit. I think a kayak on this beach would do wonders in terms of expanding the snorkeling aspect of it. Completely beautiful and apparently underutilized spot.
• Current Cut and North Current Beach: This is an interesting drive and place for sure. This is the very western tip on North Eleuthera. Apparently Current Cut (or The Cut) is known for its wide variety of marine life to see while fishing. The map says to do this 1) Swim out from the marina allowing the current to take you out 2) snorkel along the rocks 3) exit at the north end of the beach. That all sounds fine and dandy until you get there and then you realize that would be COMPLETELY INSANE to even attempt. The Cut is a passage between North Eleuthera and Current Island. At the closest these two bodies are about 250 yards apart (maybe more). The water is deep and moving VERY fast between them and there are shipping boats going in this lane quite regularly. The distance between the rocks that they tell you to snorkel along and the beach they tell you to exit at has to be 500-600 yards of open water with a strong current. So, they want you to cross this thing TWICE to do this. No thanks. Open, fast moving water, hundreds of yard wide filled with large boats and potentially curious sea creatures is not my idea of a swim I am going to attempt. The abandoned marina all the way at the end past the active dock (it’s a little notch on the map) has some calm snorkeling in it although it’s pretty pedestrian stuff. If you were gutsy you could get into the water along the road to the marina and attempt to snorkel in the little “coves” that are along there. On the North side there is a beach into incredibly flat shallow water with not a reef in sight. Probably make for some great kayaking but anything beyond that or just hanging out would be folly.

Comments? If anyone has questions or would like further information about the tasting or the notes I am always happy to answer them. I can be contacted at the winery or by my personal e-mail which is pgcwinery@netzero.com.