Caribbean > Bahamas > North Islands > Eleuthera > Surfing > Articles > Joining the Bahamian Crazy Gang

In theory it’s very easy to spend time doing nothing in The Bahamas - after all this is where the hammock was invented - so it should have been no problem for us to enjoy a day working hard at relaxing.

And all would have been well had we not bumped into John Phoenix hanging out beside a grocery store at the north end of the island of Eleuthera. Being as it was John’s day off he insisted in typical hospitable Bahamian-fashion in showing us around the long, thin island where we’d been come to spend a week surfing the kind of warm, blue waves that British surfers can only dream about. All we needed to do in return for John’s guiding was buy him half a bottle of coconut rum. We decided this was an affordable luxury, and so it was that for the next five hours we were accompanied and entertained by a man who had done everything in life apart from an office job (including diving instructor, private detective, drug smuggler, fisherman, etc). Let’s just say he was about as near as you’ll get to a modern day buccaneer, and would have looked quite at home as Blackbeard’s first mate.

Our first stop was The Cut, a diving and snorkelling spot recommended by various guide books. Here deep blue water from the Atlantic races through a narrow channel into the turquoise Sea of Abaco, and the idea is to hop in at one end, use the tidal race to carry you through at, literally, a rate of knots, and climb out at the other end. En route you’ll see the usual technicolour display of exotic fish that are an everyday occurrence in Bahaman waters.

The only problem, as far as we could see, was that if you didn’t extract yourself from the tidal race at the right point you’d be past land and some distance out into the Sea of Abaco before you could say "shark". No doubt a long swim would get you back to terra firma but, call us wimps, we weren’t prepared to risk it - despite John’s appeal to the adventurer in us. He stood above the cut, waving a spear gun in one hand and what was left of the rum in the other, telling us it would be like an underwater roller coaster. "Swim out far enough and you might even see sharks, mon!". That was enough for us - as surfers the idea of swimming out to find sharks was like zebras inviting the local cheetahs round for tea.

So, we settled for a leisurely snorkel on the landward edge of the main channel, with John swimming around us and aiming his spear gun at pretty much everything that moved. And talking of moving, when we did venture to the edge of the tidal race we could feel ourselves being whisked away on that ‘roller coaster’. It probably would have been fun, too, but...

As it happened John’s tales of free diving for black coral (which only grows at great depths where sunlight cannot penetrate effectively), or scuba diving to over 60 metres bore the hallmark of authenticity when he surfaced from somewhat more modest depths with a parrot fish on the end of his spear. But as always, once such vividly-marked creatures are brought to the surface their colours fade in the warm light of day.

Having made a catch, John decided it was time for us to head off to the north end of the island to see Preacher’s Cave, the sight of the first Bahaman government, close to the point where the first white settlers landed on the island in 1647. Personally I wasn’t that bothered about trudging around in caves - I’d come to The Bahamas for sunshine, not stygian gloom - but you don’t argue with a man like John, you just get carried along in his wake.

First though, we had a stop to make. Because John was going to find us "a good time, mon", courtesy of the local plant life and Rasta community. And who were we to argue - after all, when in Eleuthera do as the Eleutherians?

And so a jeep of four rather fazed, giggling individuals bounced up the dirt track to Preacher’s Cave where our now very good friend John Phoenix ("I may be crazy but I ain’t dumb") expounded on the history of this shrine to democracy. (That, incidentally, is not as facetious as it sounds since Eleutherian’s are very proud of the fact that this was actually the western world’s first real democracy - the name derives from the Greek word for freedom, the island being christened by adventurer immigrants from England and Barbados known as the Company of Eleutherian.)

Preacher’s Cave turned out to be a large natural chamber scooped out of a limestone cliff, with rifts in the roof acting as chimneys opening out onto powder blue skies. It’s still possible to see where fires had been lit beneath these ‘chimneys’. There were even natural shelves for beds, tables and so on. By climbing on to the top of the cliff face we could survey the surrounding coastline beyond waving palms, and with the sea only a few hundred metres away food was in ready and abundant supply. As John said, "It’s the perfect home". Well, I doubt many modern day visitors would be quite so enthusiastic, but it was easy to see why, landing on the island 350 years ago, this would readily have made a first settlement until more conventional shelter could be built.
As it’s now over three centuries since the first settlers landed on Eleuthera, you might expect the tourist trade to have got its hooks well into the place bearing in mind its exotic location and superb climate, but this is not the case at all. The few settlements such as Governor’s Harbour and Alice Town are small and unpretentious, and once beyond their boundaries Mother Nature takes over again. Driving our little jeep out to the wave-battered James Point on the east coast a few days later, for example, the only signs of civilisation were a rough dirt track, and even this petered out eventually. The translucent blue waves that we were in search of cracked on to a shallow reef and over the rusting bones of a wrecked ship, and walking along a golden beach with the mellow offshore breeze fanning away the mid-day heat ours were the only footsteps for literally miles around.

John Phoenix, for all his craziness, was well aware of just how special his home was too. His lifestyle was pretty frugal, but you don’t need a lot of money when you live off fish and sunshine, and as we dropped him off on our return from Preacher’s Cave it was hard not to feel a touch of envy for someone who really did seem to have the good things in life sussed. If that’s "crazy", then sign me up now.

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