A glass window (bridge )

Eleuthera

Eleuthera is not a chain of cays or islands like the Exumas but one long thin island of 90 miles & narrow; a little more than 3 miles wide at its widest and as thin as 50 mtres at its narrowest point It has a few small islands at the northern end with Dunmore Town on Harbour Is which is a hideaway for celebrities & the wealthy.

We reached Rock Sound after an easy trip across and anchored there for 2 days in flat, quiet, glassy water. We went ashore to feed the fish at the Ocean Hole in a park just outside the town which is connected by tunnels to the sea. Many ocean fish come quickly to feed. I'll always remember this place for the barking dogs at night & crowing roosters in the early morning.

One of our brochures mentioned a garden of sea anemones that dazzled even Jacques Cousteau's biologists. It can be reached easily from shore at a tiny offshore island. We were disappointed and think hurricanes & strong seas have wrecked the garden although we could see evidence of a good concentration of anemones on the western side. The brochure was dated 2010 – things change. However as always the swim was wonderful – all of the waters are clear and warm in the Bahamas – one just falls in.

We stopped to view 'The Glass Window'. This is a now bridged breach at the island's narrowest part. On the ocean side (Atlantic – east) where the reef is not continuous, the waves gnawed at this weak point & broke the island's natural bridge in two. In 1991 the man made bridge over the crevasse was knocked 7 feet to the west by a rogue wave. It has since been repaired & you can easily see the force of the waves still pounding away. From the sea the Glass Window forms a kaleidoscope peephole to look from west to east with deep azure blue on the Atlantic & the turquoise of the Bahamian Sound. We left the main part of Northern Eleuthera via Current Cut. This had to be timed close to high tide at slack water as there was a strong current of 3 to 4 knots, with strong whirlpools which moved the boat around quite strongly, fortunately the sea was calm and an easy exit against the strong current was no problem, thanks to Cummins power.

Our last anchorage on Eleuthera was in an almost enclosed bay called Royal Island where we waited out the night in calm waters with 5 other boats to do the crossing in the morning to The Abacos.