We didn’t get a mooring ball today, so we stayed in the Royal Island anchorage, which is a few miles from the town of Spanish Wells. Not wanting to sit around the boat all day, as there is no place to go ashore here, we took a 15 minute dinghy ride over to the town. The water was smooth and it was an easy, dry, speedy ride. As we approached the town we saw very nice homes on the edge of cliffs. They were landscaped down to the water for a very dramatic effect. When we got into the town we followed a narrow channel past many businesses. Spanish Wells is a fishing village and provides most of the lobster for the US as well as many other types of seafood. There are blocks and blocks of commercial docks with marine and other businesses next to them.
We first checked out the mooring field and saw several people we knew. We had met Pete and Dianne from
S/V Pearl in the grocery store in Rock Sound and they were at a mooring ball. Three boats are leaving tomorrow so we should have no problem getting in. While sitting in our dinghy holding on to the side of their boat talking with them, two other dinghies came up to us. They were both from the St. Paul area and we had met them before also. Gene and Kathy are on
Front Page and run several newspapers out of White Bear Lake. (Their dinghy is called Page Two, so we knew they must be involved in publishing.) We met them in Rock Sound also. Bill and Judy are on Jubilee and we met them in Warderick Wells a few weeks ago. We also anchored next to them in Alabaster Bay. Their boat’s name comes from a combination of their names, Ju + Billy. They followed us here and anchored by us last night, but did get a mooring ball today. They are from New Brighton, MN, where my brother lived years ago. My niece teaches at a school very near them. Another cruiser also came by so we had a line of dinghies holding on to each other attached to
Pearl. Dianne and Pete (
Pearl) have spent a lot of time in Spanish Wells and gave us the rundown on what to see and do here.
We left the dinghy party, tied up at a small dinghy dock and proceeded to walk around the 2+ mile long town. There is one very busy main street and most of the traffic is golf carts. They rent for $40 a day and many residents must own their own. There are beach access paths down almost every side street off the main one. At the left, I’m standing in one of them with the ocean behind me.
We had to go to the pharmacy which is in a large grocery store called Food Fair. This grocery store resembles typical supermarkets in the States with lots of items we have not seen since leaving Florida. There are only two pharmacies in Eleuthera. One is in Rock Sound and the other is in Spanish Wells. I was able to get my thyroid medicine refilled, which was a huge relief as I was going to run out before we returned to Florida. I actually found red Tootsie Pops, one of my favorite treats which I ran out of months ago. Unfortunately they were in small bags mixed with green apple flavored ones for about $5. I don’t think I’m going to be able to resist buying them.
We walked back toward where we left the dinghy and saw many beautifully landscaped years. In the photo below the Food Fair, the yard ends at the ocean beach in front of the house. I’m sure we will be taking a lot of pictures of plants while we are here.
One of the places we were advised to stop was the golf cart rental/wifi/gift shop. We had been told that it is the best gift shop in the Bahamas. Everything is made here and the prices were very reasonable. We’ll go back while we are in Spanish Wells to purchase some gifts. We’ll also get our wifi from here as it is $15 for however long one is here, one day or six months or more. That’s pretty reasonable!
We walked along the channel to our dinghy dock and on the way looked down to see a manatee. We were told she is pregnant and about to deliver her calf. She is one of three recently sited in the Bahamas. They are not usually found here and are believed to have come from Florida, a long swim for them through the Gulf Stream. This one lives near the commercial boats during the day, begging for food and goes to a mangrove at night. A man was feeding her lettuce. Everyone in town is hoping she will bring her to town after probably delivering it in the mangroves. There is a sign near her “town area” warning people not to swim with her right now as the children had been enjoying doing that until recently.
After we got back to the boat, we were preparing dinner listening to the news on our XM radio. We heard the countdown for a rocket being launched for the Air Force from Cape Canaveral. We missed the space shuttle launch by a half hour a few weeks ago (wrong information on the take-off time) which was visible from The Bahamas. We didn’t even think that we should look outside for this rocket. Just then we heard a cruiser in Spanish Wells on the VHF radio telling everyone to look at the western sky and we’d see the rocket. Sure enough, there it was, clearly visible with a trail behind it. We saw the various stages of the rocket falling off and it continued out of sight. Wow! It was accentuated by a lovely sunset. The photo at the left is what we saw tonight.
The photos below were taken on June 28, 2009 when we were staying at a marina in Port Canaveral. That night a weather rocket was launched and we had a prime view from the marina of it taking off at Cape Canaveral. As I looked through past blogs to find this photo I noticed that on that same blog page with the rocket launch picture there was also a picture of a manatee swimming in the Port Canaveral Lock. Our friends Alice and Gavin took it while the went through the lock from their anchorage on the other side to the marina. Wouldn’t it be something if those manatee were the same ones who swam to the Bahamas, one of whom is now in Spanish Wells?! Also, how strange that we saw manatee and rocket launches on two days, ten months and hundreds of miles apart.
