Touring Eleuthera

View from Eleuthera

Along with Don and Gail (Island Tyme) we hopped onto a morning ferry from Spanish Wells for the short ride across the channel to Eleuthera. Don and Gail had arranged to rent a car for the day to explore and re-visit some places from their trip here about 10 years ago. There is a liquor store right at the ferry dock that has pretty decent prices, so a few beers were purchased for the coolers.

Ferry leaving Spanish Wells

Ferry landing with liquor store

The car arrived and what a classic. A 2008 Grand Marquis land yacht. What a huge ol' beast she was. Some of the roads in Eleuthera are skinny little paths with shrubs projecting right out to the edge which tend to put horizontal scratches on the paint. These are referred to as Eleutheran pinstripes. So we piled into the beast with Don at the wheel chanting, "Stay to the left, stay to the left," as we pulled away. It is really hard to retrain your mind to drive on the left side of the road after 40 years of driving on the right.

"Stay left, stay left."

We visited Preacher's Cave where the Eleutheran Adventurers sought shelter after being shipwrecked on the Devil's Backbone just off shore. It is peaceful yet a bit haunting to quietly wander this stone refuge. You can easily picture the Eleutheran Adventurers struggling for survival there. They had ventured out to sea to gain the freedom to practice their religion. The thought of the survivors standing in that cave listening to their sermons and gaining strength from them is heart warming.

Later we headed south on the Queen's Highway to see some more sights. The land is rugged and very sparsely populated, but the scenery is sometimes unbelievable. You get views of the dark blue Atlantic to the north/east while on the Caribbean side the calm turquoise waters are a feast for your eyes. We stopped at the Glass Window and marveled at the power and beauty of Mother Nature. The rugged landscape is the perfect backdrop for the Atlantic to display both beauty and power. The original arch of rock has fallen victim to the ocean's fury back in the 1940's, but the remaining scene is still fantastic. The big waves come rolling into the gap exploding in white clouds of water. Wow, what a thing of beauty!

Atlantic Ocean side

Our group started getting pretty hungry at this point, so we set our sights on Tippy's in Governors Harbour. Don and Gail had frequented this spot during their previous trip and were excited to be returning. Tippy's is set overlooking the Atlantic and serves some tasty and interesting meals.

We toured Governors Harbour by car seeing both the older poorer section of town and the newer upscale housing developments. The contrast within just a mile is mind boggling.

Governor's Harbour from the older side looking across to the newer side.

The big Grand Marquis turned her nose north as we started back up the Queen's Highway. We stopped at the development where Don and Gail had stayed during their previous trip and they commented that the developer's ambitious plan never went much further than when they were there earlier. In fact, the roads and facilities were in pretty poor condition. It amazes us how many times we have seen this throughout our trip so far. A resort or fancy house that was started and then abandoned well before completion. Still, it was fun to see Don and Gail reflecting on some wonderful memories of their stay in Jasmine House.

Glass Window Bar

One last stop was at the Glass Window Bar which is located on the top of a very narrow section of the island. From your bar stool you can see both the Atlantic and the Caribbean waters. We sat there with the sun warming our backs sipping cocktails and chatting about anything and everything. What a nice relaxing way to wrap up our tour of Eleuthera before turning in the rental car and getting ferried back to our boats.

 

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