Years ago, Willie Rolle worked in Florida picking fruit and vegetables.  He learned how to grow them and when it was time to return to his family home in Black Point in the Bahamas, he decided he wanted to do something important with his life.  He also wanted to do something for all the visitors who come to his island on their boats. 

He inherited his grandmother’s large piece of property and started collecting driftwood and growing many different types of fruits and vegetables.  He cleared the land and has artfully arranged his pieces amongst the volcanic rock.  Willie gives tours of his “Garden of Eden” to anyone who passes by and asks.  He sees pictures in the driftwood and has a story for each one. Many were amazing, but sometimes we just had to nod our heads like we saw what he did.  Some were a little farfetched, like a woman who was in an accident, lost her head and one arm and leg and was standing sideways.  Each of his driftwood pieces have different stories, depending on the side you are standing near.  He doesn’t have them attached to anything because he likes to move them around so the next time a visitor comes it will look different. 

Now, this would have been interesting enough, but after we saw the many pieces of driftwood and heard all the stories, he took us to another part of his garden and showed us the many plants he is growing.  He has bananas, mangoes, apples, tomatoes, corn, lemongrass, avocado, sapadillo (Bahamian fruit tree), papaya, and many others I can’t remember because I didn’t know what they were.  I was, quite frankly, shocked that these vegetables and fruits could be grown here.  I questioned him about why others weren’t growing large fields of these, harvesting and selling them on the island.  The fruits and vegetables here are very expensive as they are all imported for the US or other countries.  Willie just shook his head and said the people aren’t interested. 

We are traveling with Ultra (Avalon left for Georgetown this morning to meet guests who are flying in there) and JoAnne’s father, a retired Army colonel, is a Master Gardener.  She told Willie that she will bring him back many seeds the next time she comes, compliments of her father. 

We also spent a few hours bicycling around Black Point, going down to a beach and riding on some dirt and paved roads.  One rather disturbing thing we saw was a number of homes which had foundations built and then they were abandoned. 

We ended the day with leftover shrimp gumbo on Ultra.  Mark and Bill cleaned and tenderized conch we caught several days ago before we ate.  The live  conch had been hanging out in a bag hung over the side of Seas the Day.  After we saw conch for $1 a pound at a local store, we decided while it’s fun to hunt and dive for conch, the cleaning part makes buying it at a local store a desirable option.