Even in the Bahamas, you can't escape progress
5/22/2005 3:11:45 PM by Ken Millman
I found the toughest thing about shaving after more than 35 years of having a full beard, other than looking at a stranger in the mirror, is not having enough water to slosh around in my diving mask. Other than spit, I've never used anything but water to keep my mask clear and unfogged while diving. I like a lot of water, at least enough to keep my nostrils covered, and my beard and mustache broke the watertight seal around the mask enough to do just that. Now, I find myself constantly cracking the seal of my mask to let in water.
Although I'm seeing a little clearer through my mask now, after cruising the Bahamas for more than four months this summer, I'm not happy with what I've been seeing. The Bahamas, our last close tropical paradise, is fast becoming what the Florida Keys are now. That's not a good thing; the Keys used to be like the Bahamas, but it's probably been more than 40 years since anyone could make that comparison. That's not to say there are better places to dive, fish and go boating in the continental United States than the Keys and South Florida. There aren't. But, it's still not like the Bahamas.
Slowly, but surely, the Islands are being sliced and diced. Aprivate company is developing a resort marina/ golf course complex on Guana Cay, one of the most beautiful cays in the Abacos, in spite of the efforts of citizens there to kill the project. Thus, it's only a matter of time before the world's third largest barrier reef starts feeling the effects of the pesticides used for keeping the golf course green and starts to resemble the slowly dying coral reefs off the Keys and South Florida.
For divers in South Florida, mini lobster season is numero uno and sportsmen plan their lives around it. If you don't book months ahead, you won't find a room or camping spot in the Keys. As a result, the lobster population is taking a heavy toll and the larger ones are becoming harder to find.
So, it only goes to reason, divers are looking elsewhere and finding them in the Bahamas. I'm not exaggerating when I say the waters surrounding the Islands, and particularly the Abacos, have been turned into marine slaughterhouses in recent years in terms of lobster and fish. I say slaughterhouses because most of the sportsmen I encountered had their freezers packed with fish and lobsters long before the season started. Most Bahamians I know agree. It's not what it was.
I also discovered that some of their best kept secrets have been divulged big time! One of my favorite hangouts, since first going to the Islands more than 15 years ago, is Pete's Pub in Little Harbor, on the southeast side of the Abacos. I arrived in mid May to find a photo shoot in progress (not that I'm complaining, since it was for the upcoming Hooters, South Florida, calendar). The photographer even snapped a couple of me with one of the models. To think he actually had to make me smile. This job certainly has its perks, but it doesn't change the fact that the times are changing. Environmentally, nothing was changed or altered after the models left, the harbor reverted to its beautiful turquoise self, but the secret is definitely out. (To see what else Hooters has been up to lately, see Mike Petrovsky's story "Hooters is much more than pretty girls" on page 10.)
I was sure I was going to find my Shangri-La unchanged at Royal Island in Eleuthera, where I could swing on the anchor for weeks without even seeing another boat. That didn't happen. There was a mega yacht anchored outside the natural harbor, and five boats in the harbor itself. It got worse. When I went ashore, I found a survey crew busy at work. They told me it had or was being sold and that the new owner was planning a golf course and resort. By time I left three weeks later, the survey team with the help of local labor had chopped swaths of "cutlines" across the island. It looked like a giant puzzle with tree limbs and heavy brush scattered everywhere.
I do understand you can't stand in the way of progress and that certainly applies now to the Bahamas. Maybe if I start growing my beard back things will look differently and I'll remember the way it used to be.
Ken Millman, Editor-in-Chief
Editor@wavesf.com