They were called the Eleuthera Adventurers, a group of fearless English pilgrims who set off for the New World in the mid 1600's to escape religious turmoils, and ended up shipwrecked on the reefs off Harbour Island, a small island a few miles on the Atlantic Ocean side of Eleuthera Island in the North Eastern Bahamas. Today Dunmore Town on Harbour Island is a playground for the rich who cavort on its pink sand beaches ocean side. A string of small communities stretch along the bank side of 'mainland' Eleuthera, a 'stringy' narrow band of land stretching for over 100 miles North to South, so narrow in fact that the 'Glass Window' is only 10 metres across, with a bridge spanning the turbulent chasm between the boiling Atlantic waters and the placid bank side. the bridge itself is regularly damaged, and has even been washed away in major storms. Governor Harbor, est. 1648, is reputedly the oldest town in the country, and its first capital. Like many such small places in the Bahamas (and elsewhere in the Carribeans) it has a peculiar charm made of a combination of beautiful scenery, economic stagnation, urban decay, slow pace, and courteous people (Bahamians are invariably polite and welcoming to strangers). Bon Vent sailed across the 35 miles wide Exuma Sound from Cambridge Cay in the Exumas to Cape Eleuthera in southern Eleuthera in a choppy sea that churned the stomachs of both the captain and his first mate. The close hauled sailing itself was pleasant enough by force 4 easterly wind, and we have been anchored in Rock Sound Harbour for a few days. This is a very quiet, safe and well protected anchorage, with good provisioning in town, and an excellent place to wait for the weather to get settled: it has been squally and windy all week. We visited the landlocked 'blue hole' just outside town in which a host of tropical fish is waiting for lunch graciously provided by tourists coming to visit with leftover bread crumbs; we obliged and the fish darted to and fro for our benefit...We drove in a rental car all the way to the northern part of the island, stopping for lunch at a restaurant with a breathtaking vista over the Atlantic; We crossed over the glass window bridge; We did our emails at the library in Governor Harbour, a beautifully restored pink building erected in 1898. Our next destination is Cat Island.
