Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Little Harbor, Great Abaco

The passage from Royal Island to Great Abaco is rather long, about 50 nautical miles. Since White Pepper tries to wait for mild weather we usually have to motor or motor sail.  The trip in 2015 was pleasant.  I caught a small fish.  It was probably a grouper of some kind and should not have been out in these deep waters.  It did taste very good, however.

Small fish, big appetite

After the passage most boats go to Little Harbor or Linyard Cay.  We have had good luck ducking in behind Tom Curry Point.  Tom Curry Point is a lightly protected part of the Bight of Old Robinson.  In settled weather it is a good alternative to Little Harbor which can be hot and buggy as well as requiring a mooring ball.  This year we got nailed with a swell that made the anchorage quite rolly.  White Pepper was glad to leave after two nights, not having been able to sleep after midnight of the second night when a big swell set in from a distant Atlantic gale.

We stayed the second night in order to dingy into Little Harbor which has become quite a tourist attraction.  As faithful readers of this blog will remember Little Harbor was the home of famous sculptor Randolf Johnston.  He took his family from New England where he had been an art professor at Smith College to the Bahamas in an old sailboat in the 1950's.  After a short stay at Black Point they all moved to Little Harbor where Mr. Johnston  built a foundry and resumed his sculpting.  He became quite well known for his nature sculptures.

Currently Little Harbor is in the middle of a controversy about developing a private marina and housing development.  The locals are vigorously opposed.  White Pepper did not see anything amiss and wondered what all the fuss was about.  Regardless if this development follows the usually Bahamian trajectory nothing much will happen.

Back in Little Harbor itself little has changed except that the prices have gone way up. I understand that the grandchildren are now in charge of the foundry that still operates in Little Harbor. Reproductions of Mr. Johnston's sculptures are priced between $8,000 and $32,000. Beer at Pete's Pub is $5.50.  (Pete is Randolf's son.) Hamburger's are $12.  Most of the visitors to Little Harbor do not seem to care about the price.  Jan did get a good picture of one of Mr. Johnston's sculptures in a natural setting on the hill above Pete's Pub.

Sculpture by Randolf Johnston

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice pic of the sculpture, $12 for a hamburger and people are buying them, wow, that is expensive, but then again, that's the beauty of capitalism, yea baby.