Exploring Green Turtle Cay
For the next few days, we explored different parts of Green Turtle Cay from our “home” base at the Green Turtle Club. We checked out The Tranquil Turtle over at the Bluff House resort for lunch on the 13th.
Back down the hill to the marina we went, full of fish and cold drinks.
On the 14th we went up to the north side of the island to see Coco Bay, where we had heard there were likely to be lots of sea turtles. We didn’t see any turtles, but the cove was lovely, and I did see a big ray swim by me in the shallows.
We rented golf carts to check out the other end of the island, too. We stopped off at the Loyalist Memorial in the main settlement of New Plymouth. The Bahamas was a destination for many Americans who remained loyal to Britain after the American Revolution. Many were aristocratic planter-merchants, who were dismayed to find not much fertile soil on the islands.
The memorial contains 24 busts of prominent loyalist Bahamians and some of their descendants, and two bronze statues of children. One child holds a conch shell, an important Bahamian symbol, while the other holds the Union Jack, the flag of Great Britain.
We also stopped by the Wrecking Tree, a bar named after the tree outside its front door. The wrecking tree was the spot where wrecking crews would bring their salvage in the mid-19th century; wrecking was one of the most important industries at the time and about half of all able-bodied men had wrecking licenses. Up to 17 wreckers operated out of Green Turtle Cay, and all of them brought their salvage to this tree to record it for shipment to Nassau, where the goods would be sold at auction.
We went by Ocean Beach on our way back to Green Turtle Club, just to take a look (it was too rough for a swim).
With Tom and Chris leaving for home on the 15th and 16th (boooo!), we decided to have a final crew dinner, and also asked a neighbor to snap a photo of us on the boat before we had to say our goodbyes.
Tom and Chris, you were the best crew we could have hoped for over the last couple of weeks! We’ll be calling you in the spring. 😉
Love the picture of Cecelia and Patrick, looking at the beautiful horizon.
Me too. 🙂
Why were there dollar bills hanging on the ceiling in the bar?
I think it’s just something they do at that bar – people write on a dollar bill and then hang it up to show they were there. We’ve been to other places where you write on the walls themselves!