Day 131: Green Turtle Cay

Black Point Sound, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, Bahamas (anchored)

May 26, 2022

(This entire post – except for photos – was lost last night when the internet went wonky).

Once again, we were foolhardy and made plans. The original plan was to go to town walk around for a little bit, grab coffee and maybe a pastry at a local coffee shop, and make the 3 mile hop to Manjack Cay.

What really happened is that we liked the town so much that we explored, grabbed brunch, decided we could easily go to Manjack tomorrow, explored some more, stopped for drinks, and walked a little more. It’s such a delight to change plans because we are having fun and not because of something breaking. Having our flotilla family (they started as boat buddies and moved up the hierarchy) just adds another layer of happiness.

The town of New Plymouth was established around 1786 by English Loyalists who left the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Like the Pilgrims of Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Loyalists were fleeing persecution for being on the wrong side of history.

New Plymouth, like most of the Abacos and Grand Bahama, suffered a great deal of damage from Hurricane Dorian in September of 2019 and the husks of buildings in varying levels of damage are all over.

The folks of New Plymouth are proud of their history. They’ve erected a Loyalist Memorial Garden containing busts of prominent Bahamians and explaining their significance to the history of the area. There’s also a historical marker identifying the persecution and verbal abuse the Loyalists experienced in the United States after the colonists won their independence. American history classes don’t spend time discussing this at all.

I can’t imagine how tough and determined the Loyalists were – those who traveled to the Bahamas not only were forging new ground, but they had to know that they would probably never set foot back in either the United States or Britain again. They cut lumber on Abaco Island, fished, hunted turtles, and over time built cotton plantations on the islands – and yes, the folks that came here were probably fairly prosperous already and were no doubt granted favors from England.

A more delicious historical moment for Green Turtle is that the Goombay Smash was invented by Miss Emily at the Blue Bee Bar. This recipe is often imitated (in fact there is a very popular canned soft drink of the same name) but the recipe is a family secret.

The blues of the water, the abundance of flowers (including roses, which seems unusual), and the brightly colored buildings here are visual treats. The Exumas were more wild than the Abacos, with fewer buildings and far fewer flowers. My guess is that the colonists who tried to recreate their European gardens changed the landscape. Those rose bushes growing in yards are not at all native to these islands.

The British influence is still pretty apparent, by the way. Some of the busts honored folks with OBEs or MBEs (Officer of the British Empire/Member of British Empire). The directions for heating beans on the hob were another reminder.

We will get up in the morning and grab breakfast sandwiches before we head out on the 3 mile jump to Manjack Cay, where there is supposed to be some walking trails and snorkeling spots.