News from Long Island

White Pepper motored straight into the wind the 30+ miles to Thompson's Bay, Long Island. The wind was light from the SE and not expected to change for a week. However, after being pinned down for three weeks with 20+ knot winds at George Town just moving felt good.

This was White Pepper's third visit to Thompson's Bay/Salt Pond in 7 years ,and the changes were palpable.

The iconic “Long Island Breeze” resort known far and wide to Bahamas cruisers has closed. Across the Queen's Highway Harding's Store closed January 1, 2015. The wide spread rumor is that too much credit was extended. Finally, Tryphema Knowles' Club “Thompson's Bay “ has closed. We wrote glowingly of Tryphema and her place in previous posts, but worried about her age and health. Tryphema was literally born on the shore of Thompson's Bay, and it won't seem the same without her.

View from top floor of the regatta park building at Salt Pond, Long Island

Mr. Chester Fox allows open access to his wi-fi if you sit on the top floor of the regatta park building. The gas station known as Long Island Petroleum provides fuel. Hillside Grocery has taken up the slack for Harding's. Propane and laundry can be arranged. Fox auto rental is still in business. A farmer's market is held every Saturday morning and is quite well done. There is a one room office for the Tourist Bureau that has some air conditioning and a small book exchange. A tiki bar named Sou' Side has opened. Restaurant would be too grand of a word to describe the place. Locals say it is good, but it too was closed the day (Sat) that Jan and I visited. All in all, things are pretty quite around Salt Pond.

Friday was a good day. The Long Island Agricultural Exposition which is held irregularly was held this year at the Clarence Town Community Center. The above mentioned Tourist Bureau arranged for a free bus from Salt Pond to Clarence Town. The exposition was a great success with displays of local agriculture and husbandry, a lecture about micro gardening that I found very interesting, and the usual festival food and drink.

 Father Jerome's Catholic Church circa 1946

Father Jerome's Anglican Church circa 1904

Jan and I walked from the Community Center into Clarence Town. There we investigated the two famous Father Jerome churches which will be the subject of a future post. Father Jerome is far too complicated of a subject to toss off in one paragraph. After the churches we walked to the Flying Fish Marina on the hunch that an old friend, Dennis, might be there. Sure enough Dennis was there as the captain of a 50 foot sport fishing boat named Marlin. It was great to catch up on old times with Dennis and reminisce about our adventures in Port Lucaya last year. We took a couple of great pictures of sharks feeding on the scrapes of fish from the sport fishermen's catch.

Finally to top off a great day we stopped at Dean's Blue Hole. This is the 626 foot deep blue hole made famous on the Discovery Channel by the exploits of the free divers. It is said to be the deepest blue hole in the world.

Dean's Blue Hole at Sunset.  Note the memorial to three women who died in a drowning accident.

By the time we had returned to the White Pepper at dusk, we had had one wonderful day all free and provided by the Ministry of Tourism for the Bahamas.