BIMINI-GATEWAY TO THE BAHAMAS

We have spent 4 nights in Bimini, and even though the weather has been wonderful, atrocious, rainy, gusty, raucous windy, overcast, sunny, warm, hot, humid, delightful –in each day, we have found some pretty interesting things to do and people to meet.  First, I will spend time with pictures of the beauty and fun parts of the tiny island and then to the more culinary activities we are having.

Although local mythical history buffs will claim, as the signs do here, that there is a sunken Bimini Road to the legendary lost city of Atlantis, Bimini has certainly seen better times. Hemingway, Adam Clayton Powell, and Martin Luther King are their heroes since they have had strong connections with the island. Hemingway fished here regularly and lived here when he wrote The Old Man and the Sea, Powell lived here to get away from the bad NY press when he was backlisted for illegal payments to his former Jamaican wife, and King wrote his famous Nobel Prize acceptance speech here.

Juxtaposition:  The water in Bimini is stunning—a pure clear turquoise. We can see the sharks, the starfish, and bottom fish clearly and often. When the wind blows, the west side with the Atlantic is wild cresting waves possibly good for surfing. Allen felt he could be swept off the roof the lovely Dolphin House shown below.  It was glorious watching the turquoise waves thrust themselves along the shoreline. Juxtaposition of gorgeous nature and yet seriously dangerous waters—shallows, sharks, and scary huge waves create real interest in this tiny poor natural paradise.

Such beauty here, flowers still popping, coconut trees still breeding, seawater as clear as watery glass, and yet true Third World poverty. There are huge signs about keeping Bimini clean, but as we walked around, I simply wanted to develop a pick-up-the-garbage campaign. I don’t think it is just carelessness; most of the refuse cans around the whole town are toppled because of the consistent warm but strong winds. Nevertheless, the many rainstorms and windstorms that we have had here make keeping things in better order hard to do….but picking up the trash and junk piles would really help! (Where does one put rusted junk and huge trash on such a small island???)

Lobster Tails: Our friends Suzanne and Randall turned us on to the great lobster tails an old Bahamian man brings in plastic bags to sell to boaters ($25 for 6).  We had a lovely meal last night of fresh Brussel sprouts, fried yucca, and lobster tails poached in buttery garlic.  For breakfast we had coconut bread toast and jam—mighty good eating. 

The Dolphin House:  One of the most interesting sights for us was The Dolphin House, lovingly made with ceramic tiles, bottles, conch shells and other lovely materials. Someone made this house by hand and had a lot of fun putting bottles of all types and large conch shells into the fences, stairways and walls. He gives tours of the house.

Bimini people are kind, but prices are high since they import everything from the states. Great music is aways playing somewhere, and Allen had a chance to play along with the music at Joe’s Conch Bar.  We always enjoy ourselves when we can meet new friends, new boaters, and now have some buddy boats as we travel into the rest of the Bahamian islands.

This Panorama, taken from the top of the Dolphin House shows both the West facing, wild sea and the calm protected waters on the East Side. The center of the photo is to the south.