Crew Log for February 22nd – 23rd, 2023
Trip Summary:
• Governor’s Harbor to Hatchet Bay
• Trip Distance of 16.4 NM, Total Distance To-Date of 3,058.9 NM
• Departed at 07h45, arrived at 12h00
Hatchet Bay, aka Alice Town, is said to be the safest harbor in the Bahamas. At least that is what the sign says. Constructed in the 1940’s, when a channel was cut out from the rock, the harbor was named because it was shaped like a hatchet. In recent years a proposal was put forward to cut a channel in Sweetings Pond, adjacent to Hatchet Bay. However, Sweetings Pond is apparently home to unique wildlife, including a population of seahorses and is now a protected site. Hatchet Bay was East End Point, before it was transformed into a bay.
Alice Town reminds you of one of those “one industry” towns that prospered at some point in history, but has been in steady decline with the closure of its main employer. While there is still some pride amongst the local residents for their town, everything looks tired, and forgotten by the rest of the world.
Eleuthera is one of the few places we’ve been in the Bahamas where there is food produced locally. Austin Levy, an American entrepreneur set up a dairy and poultry farm in 1936 on thousands of acres at Hatchet Bay. Levy imported cattle from his Sherman Stock Farm in Massachusetts, and supplied milk, eggs and ice cream to the Nassau market for decades. After his death in the 1951, the plantation continued to employ hundred of people and provided much of the infrastructure for nearby Alice Town. In addition to agricultural facilities, the operation featured restaurants, stores, a yacht club and a power plant.
The Hatchet Bay Farm was taken over by the government in 1975 for political reasons, but was permanently closed in 1984. Former prime minister Sir Lynden Pindling gloated in a speech that state ownership, had made the farm “the greatest success story in Bahamian agricultural history”. A surprising comment given its demise. The upright silos are still evident today and locals use them as a way to give directions to people unfamiliar with the area.
The area is also home to the Hatchet Bay Packing House, that is run by the Bahamas Department of Agriculture. Pineapples, cabbages, onions, watermelons, pumpkins, sweet peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and cucumbers are produced and shipped to New Providence. Sadly, it didn’t appear that any of the local produce was available locally.
Despite the relatively short sail from Governor’s Harbor, we got an early start, given the light winds. It was the perfect day to fly the spinnaker, affectionately referred to as the divorce papers, flying the kite is often an adventure. We have actually gotten pretty good at setting it up and flying it so we may need to give it a new nickname.
We were feeling pretty good about things, as we screamed along at a blistering 3 knots, slower than a causal walking pace. However, it was flying, and it looked pretty, but we were certainly not going to set any speed records. A few minutes later a blue streak appeared in the distance. Anodyne, who had left Governor’s Harbor hours after us, went flying by at 30 knots, also impressive.
As advertised, Hatchet Bay is incredibly protected and had decent holding. There was space for a dozen of more boats to anchor here and by the time we arrived, there were already several other boats there, including: Vic DeBeer and Irene from Kentville, Nova Scotia on a 1980 Mariner, who were on their way to the Dominican Republic for the winter; and, Karen and Rob from LaHave and were on their back to Nova Scotia and who knew our family in Bridgewater.
Later in the afternoon we decided to check out the “Boat Haven” in Alice Town. There was some evidence of reinvestment, but like the rest of Alice Town, calling it a “Haven” was a slight exaggeration. They did have live entertainment however. Emmet, the owner, job foreman, trash taker and all around story teller, was also the headline act. And while I will confess that my toes did tap and I did the occasional head bob, Emmet had his own unique style.
First of all, ensuring his guitar was tuned was an unnecessary detail as far as Emmet was concerned. He also claimed that he only did original songs, which oddly enough all sounded very similar. He didn’t like doing other people’s songs since he had to “use the right words”. Emmet also had a habit of walking up to one of the ladies, swinging and grinding his hips as he madly strummed his out of tune guitar, all the while doing his best, Eleuthera Stomping Tom impression. It’s hard to find a lot of words that rhyme with Eleuthera.
As we travel around, I continue to be amazed at this whole community of free spirits that are travelling around the world full time on a boat. At Emmet’s concert, we met a young lady from Slovakia, who served as the chief stewardess on a huge trimaran that was delivered from Europe to the Bahamas. Her time on the boat was up and she was now hanging around Hatchet Bay looking for another boat that was heading further south, or back to Europe. She was way more adventurous than me.
I don’t know if would say I have any regrets of missing some places in the Bahamas or not seeing unique things, given the sheer number of options there are. People have been coming to the Bahamas year after year and still can’t take it all in. There are however, a couple of places we would have liked to see. We heard great things about Lee Stocking Island and Cat Island. Another place that we were literally next door to and didn’t get to see was the Glass Window Bridge.
Located at the narrowest point of Eleuthera, you can compare blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean on one side of the road and the calm Bight of Eleuthera on the other side. Next to the Glass Window Bridge is the Queen’s Bath, tide pools formed in the rock, filled with crystal clear water warmed by the sun.
Unfortunately, the anchorage there is exposed and so a comfortable stay would require a calm day, or an east wind. We had neither. There was a lingering swell from strong winds earlier in the week, so our plan to go to the Glass Window Bridge was scuttled.
We opted instead to hike across the island to the beach on the ocean side and have a picnic. Our walk took us through Alice Town and out past the rolling fields of the former Hatchet Bay Farm. The silos were still there, although the vegetation is starting to consume them. It was easy to get a sense of how impressive the farm must have been, looking across the endless expanse of rolling fields, dotted with silos.
The beach was impressive as well, with it’s pinkish sand and crystal clear ocean water. To reach it however, we had to scale a massive sand dune, that was as challenging getting down, as it was getting up. The shore at the tide mark seems to drop straight off and so you can literally dive from the shore into deep water. As disappointed as we were for not getting to the Glass Window Bridge, spending the better part of the day on our secluded beach was a rewarding compromise.
Our time in Eleuthera was going by far too quickly, but we were excited for one last stop in Spanish Wells, which was different than any other place we had visited in the Bahamas to date.
But more about that, next time.
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