New Bight (24 17.10 N/075 25.20 W)

After a few days at Hawk’s Nest Marina and Resort:

It was time to move on to the ”real Bahamas” and New Bight about 10 miles north of Hawks Nest:

Duke's Deck

After getting fortified on ice cream at Grammy Farah’s:

We went exploring:

Our first stop was the ruins of the old Armbrister Plantation house, which was burned by slaves during a revolt during the days prior to emancipation.  The house was pre-Loyalist period, it was built in the 1760’s.

As we continue north into the Eleuthera Islands, the Loyalist influence will become more acute. After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, many of the English Loyalists (Tories) fled Georgia and the Carolinas either to Florida (then English-owned), or to the Bahamas. The Treaty of Versailles in 1783 restored Florida to Spain, and a great number of these transplanted Florida Loyalists had to flee to the Bahamas to remain under the British flag. By 1788, about 9,300 Tories had fled to the Bahamas and more would follow, but they all had tasted life in the U.S. The 1776 influx of Loyalists quickly brought in 3,000 or more slaves and the 1783 influx attracted 1,000 more.

Religion is significant part of the Bahamian life. New Bight is no different, but seems to have a significant number of churches in various state of disrepair.

Tomorrow we will be visiting Father Jerome’s Hermitage, one of the more significant sights on Cat Island.

Before the dinghy ride back to the anchorage, we shared a Kalik with these two characters to get the low-down on Cat Island.