03 May 2007

North to South on Long Island

May 3, 2007

Renee and Michael on Jacumba rented a car to explore Long Island and invited us along. We gladly accepted and had a wonderful day going to places otherwise inaccessible by boat. Queen’s Highway is the main road that runs the length of Long Island from North to South so we headed south toward Clarence Town. There are numerous grocery stores, convenience stores, a couple bars, and lots of “everything” stores with kids toys, furniture, household goods, stationary, garden supplies, etc. etc. There are also many churches along Queen’s Highway ranging from Anglican (Church of England) to Baptist to Catholic and others in between.

Our first stop was Dean’s Blue Hole at Turtle Cove. Blue holes are basically large underwater caves, some only 20 feet deep, and others, like Dean’s, 600 feet (200 meters) deep! We are told that Dean’s Hole is the deepest and largest such structure in the world. Also, the world record for free diving was broken here just a couple weeks ago when a guy dove about 200 feet into Dean’s Hole. The area was pristine with no development, no trash, a white sand beach and a view of the ocean. The only other people there were a couple boys fishing with their mom.


Kristen swimming across the blue hole. The bottom is 600 feet below...what's down there?

Swimming in Dean’s Hole is a little scary at first since the sea floor drops off from knee high, to thigh high to 600 feet in the matter of 2 steps. The entire hole is ringed with coral reefs that contained a large variety of fish. Dean’s Hole is spectacular and one of the most amazing things we’ve seen in the Bahamas and in nature.

After a couple hours there, we jumped in the car and drove down to Clarence Town where we had lunch at the Flying Fish Marina. On the way back we stopped at a couple of the stores and bought a few things, including a Monopoly set. Competition is high on Whisper these days and shouts of aggravation and glee can be heard throughout the harbour.


An old Anglican church in Clarence Town.

Kit kat supervising the Monopoly game.