Our 6 weeks here in Spanish Wells is sadly coming to a close. Spending quality time here has been one of our best cruising decisions ever & we hope to return next year!

Our nephew Matt visited from CT. He had a blast with perfect weather for his entire week.

Golf carts are the best way to get around but remember to drive on the LEFT (like the U.K.).

Matt’s favorite hangout – just a mile kayak ride away, with beautiful views, warm swimming & partial shade from the Casuarina trees.

We even arranged for this SpaceX rocket launch. This was the 1st ever SpaceX launch with a trajectory directly over the Bahamas with its booster landing within Bahamian waters (usually lands 50 miles east of the Bahamas in the Atlantic Ocean). The booster landing on the SpaceX Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship named Just Read the Instructions was somewhat near the center of the Bahamas, about 1/2 way between Eleuthera & the Exumas. Many lucky people were only 20+ miles away from the landing ship so could see the dramatic booster landing – slowly & perfectly descending onto the ship’s deck. While we could only view the landing on-line, we sure heard the accompanying sonic boom.

Our unusual dock neighbor one night – this landing craft vessel is used as a workboat for a private island.

On the left, this sailboat is being blocked underwater by a diver as the lift platform is raised an inch at a time. The next day with the platform fully raised, the sailboat receiving its full glam job.

This is our resident manatee who we often see cruising by. This time kayaking, I saw him working a mussel or oyster shell off the concrete wall, then sucking on it, turning it around in his mouth with his front flippers.

With only a month before the lobstering season closes for the summer, these boats were constantly arriving & departing.

A visit to the small Spanish Wells Museum was a great refresh from our visit 12 years ago. English Puritans known as “Eleutherian Adventurers” arrived in 1649 (unfortunately, the original Lucayans had previously been decimated by the Spanish due to disease & otherwise taken as slaves to various Caribbean islands). Their landing, however, began with a crash as their ship was lost on the reef approaching the shore. They barely survived their first year living in a nearby cave. As they began their slow recovery & growth, religious faith & cooperative ideals sustained them then & over the last 375 years. The utilities, the harbor, the lobstering boats, along with many businesses are co-operatives. Thru the 1800’s, much of their building materials came from the ships which would wreck on the offshore reefs. After rescuing survivors, men would spend months diving down to the wrecks recovering all they could – even un-nailing & removing the copper sheathing from the hulls (used back then to prevent wood worms from boring into the hull) to re-use on their house roofs.  Most of town including roads were built by hand, by the residents. Large equipment didn’t arrive here until the 1960’s & no central electricity until the 1970’s.

Lobstering is now their largest endeavor with young men being scouted right out of school as young as 14-years old. Oh no, what about High School? Well, consider this trade school. The very few passing the stiff requirements, work ethic & being voted “in” by the crew, are now a voting member & part owner of a million-dollar lobstering boat with a potentially very large yearly paycheck – most years that is… Boats break down, poor lobstering years and … oh, hurricanes. Unfortunately, every 5 – 20 years, a devastating hurricane will hit Spanish Wells, flooding the town, ripping off roofs & tossing the ships into the mangroves. Little pay for a year or two while you work long days to repair your ship & the entire town so you can get back out there.

Time for us to “shove off” from Spanish Wells, but first a trip to the Immigration Office to apply for an extension. While we had often been able to obtain a length of stay of 4 months upon arrival, the Bahamas is now only issuing initial stays of 3 months, thus many cruisers need to apply for additional few weeks. When needed, obtaining an extension was a hassle (timing, location & logistics) but at least there was no additional fee – now charging $200 per person. We will only be a week or two over our 3 months, but their country – their rules – which they take very seriously.

Total customs & immigration fees used to total $150 for our 4 months – now they total $1,000! Paradise is getting pricey! I guess that goes along with a dozen eggs for $12.50 + 10% VAT & lucky to get them at all as this week’s ship “lost” a large refrigerated tractor trailer arriving from the U.S. full of the island’s perishables for the week.

This small settlement (consisting of St. George’s Cay & Russell Island) has been called Spanish Wells since the 1500’s when these islands were used as a stop for the Spanish treasure fleet returning to Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. Spanish galleons refilled their water supply from wells created for this purpose – thus the English name of the settlement: Spanish Wells.

Spanish Wells is widely recognized as the most industrious settlement in the Bahamas. Up until 2012 the island was dry (no alcohol) – that serious about their work! Their fishing vessels, the harbor, the utilities & most things in the settlement are co-ops, so everyone helps fund improvements & works for the better good. They even have a conventional garbage truck & a working fire truck. Why is that a big deal? Most settlements can’t afford them, so garbage is often picked up in an uncovered pickup truck. And a fire truck – too expensive to buy & maintain = some old ones we’ve seen are piles of rust with no tires.

Their busy waterfront includes over a dozen of the finest fishing boats you’ll see anywhere. Young men hope to buy a share onto a fishing boat, working their way up & earning a larger share as their value as crew increases. Hard work & away for weeks at a time but they can make a very good living. Their prime target is Carribean (“spiny”) lobsters – harvesting nearly 5 million pounds per year. The waterfront usually has several large, refrigerated (frozen) shipping trailers awaiting pickup by ship for transport throughout the world.

The insert in the photo above better shows stacks of “lobster condos” ready to be deployed. No bait is used – these “condos” are simply square structures placed on the ocean bottom in shallow water with a concrete block on top to keep in place. During the day lobsters hide in the condos, thinking they’re safe. The mothership travels south from Spanish Wells over 100 miles towing several “ducklings” (as the small boat above). Once to their territory, the ducklings take off for the day visiting their many lobster condos. Divers go down, flip each condo over revealing dozens (hopefully) of lobsters hiding. The divers stun them before they can scuttle away, then collect them to aboard the duckling. Repeat, repeat, repeat through a tiring day, bringing their catch to the mothership every evening. As the mothership travels, they deploy additional condos to supplement the existing ones in the best areas. The “Bahama Lobster Pirates” was a one-season TV show in which four fishing boats compete to bring back the largest catch. The “pirate” part is that, according to Bahamian law, the placed lobster condos do not belong to anyone – so for the show (& real life) it is a free-for-all to reach any group of condos before another boat. If you happen to follow their path too soon, the condos will be empty. And of course, you’re looking for your own condos, as well as any others (in calm weather you can see their shadow as you cruise around). If you search around on-line, you can find a streaming source which offers the “Bahamas Lobster Pirates” – quite interesting, but with a limited run on an unusual network it didn’t continue.

And the women … they run everything in town. While this may look like a simple grocery check-out clerk, Greta Pinder runs the Pinders Market, the Pinders Taxis, the Pinders Water Ferry & probably half of what goes on in town. If she doesn’t run it, she knows about it.

The waterfront is always buzzing with ship & boat repairs. Here their old-fashioned marine railway can haul their largest vessels. There is a cradle on a railcar which is released down the tracks into the water, a diver places poppits to support the hull, then is winched up to a working space – temporarily shutting down the waterfront roadway as the track crosses the road – quite a show. They also have several, modern boat lift platforms used for smaller boats. All are busy, as quality facilities & such a specialty workforce are hard to find in the Bahamas.

Speaking of closing down the road, freight ships arriving close down the channel (except for small vessels) for a few hours. The freight dock isn’t long enough to come alongside, so they “dock” crosswise & “ro-ro” (roll on/roll off) the trucks via a ramp on their bow quarter.

Even though Spanish Wells is only a mile off mainland Eleuthera, everyone & everything (including cars & trucks) have to take a ferry to travel back & forth.

We have been quite spoiled being at a nice dock for over a month in the Bahamas – our first time ever. We (Lori!) decided we needed a break after 13 years of dealing with winter cold fronts every 4 – 7 days with wind clocking around (making for tough anchoring protection), high winds & occasional squalls – oh, and boats anchoring too close and/or dragging into us in the middle of the night! But not this year – just us paying for a dock this winter has given all 1,000 or so cruisers throughout the Bahamas the best weather in many years! This is the longest stretch anyone can recall of not a single cold front arriving down this far, which means nearly constant easterly winds 5 – 20 knots, great for calm anchoring, travel & even great sailing. I can’t even remember the last time it rained. We’re thinking of setting up a GoFundMe account for next winter so we can stay at a nice dock & the 1,000 cruisers can have nearly perfect weather again 🙂

Not only are we at a nice, private dock, they offer a free washer & dryer to use (we normally have to pay $10 – $12/load). And free fruit & veggies with every load as our dock’s owner has a small farm elsewhere in Eleuthera. And there is a medium-sized grocery store just a 5-minute walk away! Thanks to Erin & Chris on m/v Barefeet for letting us know of this great dock!