For some reason, we decided it would be fun to explore Cat Island by car. Yesterday was fantastic. Maybe there was more. There was just so much we thought we needed to see and so little time. That is a disastrous mindset in the Bahamas or anywhere really. Then to top that off, we called three car rental places, no car. Was that enough to deter us? For a little while maybe, but what a challenge. We tried one more place. They had a car. We arranged to meet at Rollezz beach resort at noon.
We moved our boat closer to shore. But only by about 100 yards by the time we were set again. Chicken. We motored Fat Tuesday down to the little resort at the end of our beach. The staff said it was fine to leave her on the beach and we carried her high into the dry sand and anchored her there.
The Rollezz beach resort is the kind of place where a Corona ad should be filmed. It is the kind of place you could just sit in the shade of the beach hut and read and talk and dream. If you wanted a change, you could walk down the five mile beach or swim in the crystal clear calm blue water or just float. So comfortable, so beautiful, so relaxing. In fact there was a group just doing that. David spoke to one of the men while I sat in a beautiful pink shady enclosure staring out at the beautiful beach.
The man predicted our car would be late. “They will probably get here around 1 or 1:30, he said. “You are on island time.” At 12:30, we called the first time, they were running a bit late. We ate our packed lunch, the Bahamian biscuits with cream cheese. At 1:00, we were thinking,”was this worth it?” We had so little of our day left, maybe we should just cancel. The car came around 1:30.
Amorin was the driver. We had to take him back to the rental place, pay and speak with the owner. First though, we had to run some errands. We stopped at a house. Amorin came out with three red roses. “Valentine’s tomorrow,” he said. On the way to the rental place, which was also a hardware store and an excavation and building company, the road was terrible. Amorin was darting around deep pot holes. It took us a long time to go each mile. He told us about a group that had to be pulled out of a pot hole.
We arrived at the hardware store. Lana checked us out and gave us a map. Then her husband Maurice thought he should change the battery in our car. Then he thought he should use the opportunity to teach Amorin a thing or two. At this point it was 2:30 with our car rental due back at 5. We were committed. We headed out.
Our first stop was south to look at Fernandez Bay which was an anchorage away from our first anchorage in New Bight. We thought we might want to anchor there if we returned to the island. It was beautiful The resort there was lovely and there were several boats in the harbor. The plantings were lovely with Bougainvillea blooming. The main lodge had a woven roof. People were relaxing. We got back in the car.
There were some blue holes we had read about at the South end of the island and David had asked Maurice about seeing them. We had read that one of them bubbles with the tide and the other one has so many deep and indicate caverns that farm animals that fell in have later been found in the ocean. He laughed at us. “The roads up there are not maintained,” he said. “Even a pick up truck would have trouble getting there.” Neither he nor Lana had a lot of thoughts about what we should see.
With our limited time, we decided to drive the shorter end of the island, north. We would take the road out to Devil’s Point. We went back the way we had come on the main road from Rollezz. The first part of the road was best. They are repaving it because of a new airport. It was dusty and we had to avoid workers but it was smooth. Then we were back on pot hole road. We stopped at the fish fry area in New Bight. Several of the bars and restaurants were open but no artisans today. We did find some ice cream. Dodging potholes was sort of like a video game. We hoped we had a lot of lives. Every now and then we would have to pull over for a local person to pass us. The speed limit was 45 but we were under 20 most of the time.
The island was interesting but once again, we could see how difficult life is here for plants, animals, humans and vehicles. There are large black plastic tanks outside homes, I assume for water. There are lots of abandoned properties. Even one of the government buildings, looks like they gave up on an old building and built a new one behind it. There is really no way or place to take or put things that break so they just stay. We did see several gardens, one had watermelon growing. How does the watermelon find its water? We looked for farms but we either did not see or did not recognize them.
We passed several schools. They are painted yellow and green just like on the other islands and very well kept. The children were in uniforms, the high school boys wore white shirts and ties. Lana told us that they play basketball and they recently made a baseball field. Another teacher has started a marching band. They compete with schools on other islands.
About halfway to our destination, we both decided we had had enough pot hole dodging. We decided to turn around and stop at the grocery on the way back to return the car. The market is always interesting. We found a nice cucumber, some onions and some romaine lettuce. We made it back to the hardware store.
Maurice and Lana were there. “Did you find any Blue holes?” They asked.
“Yes,” we said, “we found several, right in the middle of the road.“ They thought that was hilarious. Lana drove us back to Rollezz. She was talkative and so nice. They have 5 children. Her children have gone to school in the states. Her youngest will graduate high school in May and is going to Howard University in the fall. The two girls live together in Oklahoma and the youngest attends high school there. We asked if they had family in Oklahoma. A distant relative had been there but “mostly,” she said, “I chose it because it was like Cat Island.” She flies there from time to time and stays with the girls. She cooks peas and rice for them and fills their freezer with fish, lobster and conch.
We made it back to Rollezz. Lana drove faster than we had and hit an occasional pot hole. She was constantly saying “Jesus” or “Glory” or “this is bad” as she swerved to avoid them. They are planning to repave the road after the airport project. “Everyone’s vehicle will last a little longer” Lana predicts.
We got back in time to take groceries to the boat and head back to the beach for the sunset. Fat Tuesday was waiting patiently. The people in the beach hut relaxing were still relaxing and looked refreshed.
We landed back on the beach across from our boat and decided to walk down and sit on some rocks to watch the sunset. It was beautiful and calm and soothing. We parked Fat Tuesday a little ways up and started walking. The sunset was lovely.
After the sunset, we looked back and saw that Fat Tuesday’s stern seemed to be in the water. She was still on shore but not for long. David started running as she started to float a little more. He flung his shirt hat and phone onto the beach and plunged into the water.
It had been a long day on the beach for Fat Tuesday and she was tired of sitting. She was going back to the boat without us. She soon realized however that even though she had her oars and her motor, she did not have anyone to steer her and she began to panic. She was blowing out! She could end up in the Exuma Sound! Luckily, David swam to her rescue. We all went back to the boat together. We pulled our naughty little dinghy up on the boat for the night.
