Long Island and Beyond!

 

Long Island lived up to its name, it’s LONG. It’s roughly 80 miles and one of the skinniest islands too, with the widest part being only 4 miles wide. We sailed around the northern part of the island pass the Christopher Columbus monument then turned south to Clarence Town, the largest port on the eastern side of the island.

Picked this pict off from the web.

Clarence Town harbor is easy to enter and has a good sized anchorage with some of the clearest water that I’ve found in the Bahamas. Over 100 feet of visibility in the harbor, it was great snorkeling! We saw coral, small fish, some small conch (no big ones) and star fish but nothing really large. Where are the big conch?

Clarence Town,,, Well, I have to say that 40 years ago this place might have been a thriving settlement but now it’s a bit of a ghost town. Many, many houses are abandoned and falling down and we found that the south side of the island is experiencing hard times.

this is the grocery store in town, not much in it.

 Long island use to have a thriving salt works on the south end of the island… ever hear of “diamond salt” of St. Clair, Michigan? You can still buy Diamond Salt in the stores but it’s not produced here any longer. They use to produced salt through evaporation in large “salt ponds”. It’s all gone now except for the old salt ponds and when the company left so did the jobs and the economy collapsed. Here is a writeup about the salt industry in the bahamas. http://tcmuseum.org/culture-history/salt-industry/ Here's some picts of what the salt works in the Bahamas looks like: 

 

Yes, these are mountains of salt!

We wanted to see more of the island than foot power allowed so we rented a car and drove over most of the island to have a see. We found a 70+ mile long, paved two lane road (the Queen’s highway) with a never ending chain of houses and (very) little towns strung out over the length of the Island. After a little mishap  (we hit a pothole and bent both left wheel rims, two flat tires).

We made it to the southern tip of the island where there is a fabulous beach! Then north to the Salt Pond Settlement. Everywhere that we stopped we found minimal services (except where the tourists are) and friend people who were only lacking money. It seems that the only money on the island is from the tourists. Oh, and we also found goats wandering in the road at times!