4/17/13 Long Island by car
After breakfast we loaded up in the dinghy again for the 5 miles into Stella Maris. We arrived just after 9am and Presley Pinder([email protected]) was already there with our car. As I rode back to the airport with him, Presley explained that he rented cars and boats for the resort, but that his real passion was as a bone fishing guide. I was expecting paperwork for the vehicle, but when I dropped him at the resort and paid him the $75 for the day, that was it….he asked that I just leave the car unlocked at the marina and the keys under the driver’s side floor mat. (I am liking the Bahamas at this point!)
After stopping by the airport to pick up a receipt from the customs officer who cleared us in the day before, I drove (on the left) the short distance back to the marina to pick up Ginny and the girls. We then drove the 35 miles south to Dean’s Blue Hole, just outside of Clarence Town. Unfortunately, the minute I turned the underwater camera on the battery indicator began blinking. So as Ginny and the girls explored the beach I drove to Clarence Town to find some triple A batteries.
Once I was back at Dean’s, Mia, Ellie and I went out to the edge of the hole with the camera. The upper lip of the blue hole is about eight feet under water, but the lower lip is about 30 feet down…and then it is just deep blue beyond that. A diver was dangling off the rope by the platform above the hole and he had a single large flipper that both feet fit into. In the parking lot earlier a group that dove to 30 meters said that the diver on the platform had gone to 90 meters! We watched him now calmly flip upside down and disappear into the depths of the hole for 45 seconds to a minute at a time, spending only a couple minutes on the surface in between his three to four dives. As dangerous sports go, free diving is only second to base jumping…of a few thousand free divers around the world, 100 die each year from passing out on their way back to the surface.
We dried off and drove to Clarence Town for lunch at the Flying Fish Marina…only a half mile away from where we had anchored a couple days before. As we headed out of town we drove past the Anglican and Catholic Churches, both designed by the same Father, the latter was built after he converted to Catholicism. About half way back up the island we stopped at a windward beach north of Pinders and across from Thompson Bay. Even with plastic, rope and buoys strewn across the shore from the open Atlantic the beach was stunning. Ginny and Hannah walked to the south while Mia, Ellie and I went north, and all of us explored the sandstone cliffs weathered and shaped by the years of easterly swells rolling into the shore.
By the time we drove past the Stella Maris marina entrance it was pushing 4pm. We continued north to a dirt road turn off in Seymour’s and drove over pebbles, then a few rock ledges and finally sand with briar bushes scraping both sides of the car. We arrived at the end of the road (that we shouldn’t have been on with this low clearance car) and just below the hill with the Columbus Monument built as a memorial of his landing there in his first voyage in 1492. From the monument and the navigation light on the hilltop, the views down the white cliffs to the ocean and into the flats inland (also called Columbus Harbour) were all stunning in the afternoon light.
We crept back along the road meant for 4-wheelers in our trusty sedan and made it back out to the main road without issue. At around 5pm I dropped Ginny and the girls off south of the Santa Maria Resort to walk the mile or so of beach as far south as possible (to just above Hog Cay). I then drove the car back to the marina, posted a quick blog update with my ipad and wifi, and then dinghied the 5 miles to Helia and another mile to Ginny and the girls. It was 6:45 when we all climbed aboard Helia and had a late dinner snack of crackers, peanut butter and fruit before bed.
After breakfast we loaded up in the dinghy again for the 5 miles into Stella Maris. We arrived just after 9am and Presley Pinder([email protected]) was already there with our car. As I rode back to the airport with him, Presley explained that he rented cars and boats for the resort, but that his real passion was as a bone fishing guide. I was expecting paperwork for the vehicle, but when I dropped him at the resort and paid him the $75 for the day, that was it….he asked that I just leave the car unlocked at the marina and the keys under the driver’s side floor mat. (I am liking the Bahamas at this point!)
After stopping by the airport to pick up a receipt from the customs officer who cleared us in the day before, I drove (on the left) the short distance back to the marina to pick up Ginny and the girls. We then drove the 35 miles south to Dean’s Blue Hole, just outside of Clarence Town. Unfortunately, the minute I turned the underwater camera on the battery indicator began blinking. So as Ginny and the girls explored the beach I drove to Clarence Town to find some triple A batteries.
Once I was back at Dean’s, Mia, Ellie and I went out to the edge of the hole with the camera. The upper lip of the blue hole is about eight feet under water, but the lower lip is about 30 feet down…and then it is just deep blue beyond that. A diver was dangling off the rope by the platform above the hole and he had a single large flipper that both feet fit into. In the parking lot earlier a group that dove to 30 meters said that the diver on the platform had gone to 90 meters! We watched him now calmly flip upside down and disappear into the depths of the hole for 45 seconds to a minute at a time, spending only a couple minutes on the surface in between his three to four dives. As dangerous sports go, free diving is only second to base jumping…of a few thousand free divers around the world, 100 die each year from passing out on their way back to the surface.
We dried off and drove to Clarence Town for lunch at the Flying Fish Marina…only a half mile away from where we had anchored a couple days before. As we headed out of town we drove past the Anglican and Catholic Churches, both designed by the same Father, the latter was built after he converted to Catholicism. About half way back up the island we stopped at a windward beach north of Pinders and across from Thompson Bay. Even with plastic, rope and buoys strewn across the shore from the open Atlantic the beach was stunning. Ginny and Hannah walked to the south while Mia, Ellie and I went north, and all of us explored the sandstone cliffs weathered and shaped by the years of easterly swells rolling into the shore.
By the time we drove past the Stella Maris marina entrance it was pushing 4pm. We continued north to a dirt road turn off in Seymour’s and drove over pebbles, then a few rock ledges and finally sand with briar bushes scraping both sides of the car. We arrived at the end of the road (that we shouldn’t have been on with this low clearance car) and just below the hill with the Columbus Monument built as a memorial of his landing there in his first voyage in 1492. From the monument and the navigation light on the hilltop, the views down the white cliffs to the ocean and into the flats inland (also called Columbus Harbour) were all stunning in the afternoon light.
We crept back along the road meant for 4-wheelers in our trusty sedan and made it back out to the main road without issue. At around 5pm I dropped Ginny and the girls off south of the Santa Maria Resort to walk the mile or so of beach as far south as possible (to just above Hog Cay). I then drove the car back to the marina, posted a quick blog update with my ipad and wifi, and then dinghied the 5 miles to Helia and another mile to Ginny and the girls. It was 6:45 when we all climbed aboard Helia and had a late dinner snack of crackers, peanut butter and fruit before bed.