Freeport is starting to have some serious Hotel California vibes. We have heard multiple stories of people who came to visit or to live for a short while and ended up staying much more long term than they expected! It’s easy to see why, the people here are fun and welcoming and there is no shortage of beautiful beaches. I have started writing this after a lovely morning sail with some great friends that we made since arriving in Freeport and had spent time getting to know. The seas were small and the winds were low but we were able to get the Genoa, Main and Mizzen out and cruise along at a speedy 3 kts. Perfect conditions for a light day sail and I think a good time was had by all!
As expected, here I am finishing off this blog post almost 2 weeks later! There aren’t many anchorages in Grand Bahama so a lot of cruisers skip it. We went back to the same marina, thinking we were leaving the boat there while we flew back to Florida for a couple of weeks. As luck would have it, we ended up not needing to fly back so we did some more exploring of parts we missed last time we were here. This included heading out to Lucayan National Park, home to an extensive underwater cave network that is believed to be one of the longest underwater cave systems in the world. It was not a busy park so when we went into the caves we were the only people there, looking over the still water and taking in the tranquility…until our eyes adjusted to the darkness and we could see the many, many little buffy flower bats sleeping and flying about. We weren’t alone after all!
The caves are also home to a burial mound where Lucayan bones were found. These were the original inhabitants of the island, before European colonisation, when they were the first natives of the “new world” to have been encountered by Columbus. They have long since been wiped out due to disease and enslavement. The Taíno poeple, of which the Lucayan’s were a branch of, do still exist in small numbers in eastern Cuba.
Eventually, it was time to leave for the Abacos. When we were getting ready to leave the marina I went to pull up fenders and found some very stubborn sea horses attached to the fender lines. I had to give the lines a good wiggle to encourage them to drop back into the water. When we got around to the fuel dock, the dock hand told me that we were blessed to see sea horses as they were very uncommon in the area. Fueled up and Laurel and Vernice on board, we headed out on the next leg of our adventures. I’m sure we will be back to visit again!
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