Bahamas beyond the brochures

We were the only boaters in Fox Town yesterday. The only visitors in fact. We nearly outnumbered the locals in Fox Town yesterday.

This is our seventh month in the Bahamas. The cruising season ended nearly two months ago. In droves, they hoisted sails and headed south to the relative safety of Grenada or north to the marinas and boatyards of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas as the hurricane season approached and insurance companies demanded.

The tourist season in the Abacos ended just over a week ago with a bang. The annual Cheeseburger in Paradise party, on the tiny sliver of land called Fiddle Cay, overrun by vendors and signs and t-shirts and caps and winding lines for free burgers, hot dogs, margaritas, beers, rum etc etc etc… with the bikini clad model types writhing to trap rap aboard the slew of rafted Trump-flag-waving candy coloured speedboats with matching hunks of glistening horsepower. Giant blow up unicorns and pink flamingos and blow up dolls literally, are spotted across the water. Bodies meander, gyrate, fluorescent plastic cups overflow with libation to the gods of excess and indulgence…  This spectacle of a party is unmatched in the Bahamas and no doubt far beyond. 

It is everything that Fox Town is not. We are less than 15 miles and a week away, and we are in another world. The small town life of the real Bahamas. Minus the American glitz and glamour. There are no looming buildings of Atlantis hanging over us here.

Just a couple of 10 year old local boys with dusty scratched knees and a bucket of stinking conch chunks and a fishing line, standing on the end of a dock with a friendly hello. They’ve caught three mutton snappers. Two tiny ones and a decent sized one too. That will be supper for the family. It’s enough.

A walk down the main and only street of Fox Town reveals what many small towns here do – of the 20 or so buildings, many boarded up, at least three are churches. And they are in the best shape. A recent paint job, a welcoming sign. It’s the hope that keeps the few remaining residents around.

The residents are industrious. What looks like a gas station, promising us a refill of diesel for our jugs, turns out to be everything but. The diesel hose, like a dead snake, lies curled on the ground, unused, with it’s fate unknown. They don’t have the ‘Take Away’ food promised on the sign in the yard either. However the shop inside has a working fridge with cold drinks and beers, melted chocolate bars, a 20 lb jar of pickles… in the other half of the shop, Nautica brand clothing and some seriously un-church-like ladies outfits. When I turn around in the tight space, I’m greeted by a barber’s chair complete with a full price list on the wall. A hair salon too!!! Too bad about the diesel though…

The residents are friendly. Genuinely. Out front of the non-diesel-carrying gas station we meet the son of the proprietor. He says, ‘let me make a call’. A few minutes later we’ve handed over our empty jugs and some cash and he disappears down the road in his old red pick up.

We are not worried in the least. We’ve forgotten to get his name but we know where he lives!

An hour later we are at Da Valley – Fox Town’s claim to fame – the only restaurant here. It’s known in cruising and local circles for it’s cracked conch. Not for it’s décor. We are sipping cold beers and eating burgers and such when who should appear but red pick up man with diesel filled and here. 

This is the real Bahamas. It’s nothing like the brochures. It’s definitely not what friends and family imagine when we say we are ‘living on our boat in the Bahamas’. There is zero glamour here. No tourism, no beach, no umbrellas in the cocktails. No cruise ships dock here. But it’s where Bahamians come from. It’s where they are ferried home to after a hard day’s work at a tourist resort, watching the revelers frolick on the best beaches and eating the most expensive lobster dishes. This is home.

For us it’s a lesson in contrast. In humility. It allows us a glimpse of life beyond the brochure.

We feel the contrast too in our small way. Looked for a vegetable or two, just to tide us over the couple weeks before we sail back to the land of plenty. Only one working store here. She had a box of non-rotting tomatoes. That was it. Perhaps an onion or two. It’ll have to do. We will have to open cans of mushy over salted vegetable remnants. But we can leave. We can move, we can experience it all. From Fox Town to Atlantis to nature’s wonders like Conception Island. We get to experience the whole Bahamas. And here, anchored off quiet Fox Town, there is plenty of time to contemplate our luck. 

Beaches Breezes and Fox Town Feeds Us

We’re in Fox Town only there are no foxes here, neither the animal or urban dictionary type.

Fox Town has a population of just over 200 people. It has a church (of course), and a restaurant/town bar called Da Valley with it’s own dock. And one table.

Next door there is a Shell station which consists of two ancient pumps next to the road. No building, no shelter per say. But the fuel hose reaches all the way down to the dock to serve the few local speed boats.

There is no bank or ATM for 60 miles.

There are three stores. These are not stores in the traditional sense. There are no signboards or overhead fluorescent lights. Each store is the front room of a house with one domestic fridge and two or three hand crafted wooden shelves displaying whatever they have. 

Yesterday we arrived and scrambled to shore to shop!  Between the three stores we were able to get one sweet potato (last one in town!), a dozen eggs, two tomatoes, a green pepper that was only half rotting, and a head of lettuce. A head of lettuce!

No cabbage or fresh milk or salami or dark chocolate (haha!!), or anything much else for that matter. Judy of Da Valley, drives the 80 miles down to Marsh Harbour randomly, and comes back with items to sell in the shops. No one can tell what day or week she might go. 

Judy of Da Valley

Unless you are a desperate clan of cruisers who arrive on the verge of scurvy, having spent the better part of two weeks without a fresh vegetable, and who beg, I mean inquire, as to when she would go next and would she entertain the idea of taking our shopping lists. It’s either that or sail two days through some tricky shallows and come all the way back…

And as it goes, Judy said yes!!! So we wait until Monday when she will go and bring us some food. And hence we find ourselves anchored in Fox Town on a Sunday. Nothing is open but the church, so there’s no point going to shore.

Since the local fishermen feed the black tip sharks in this bay, there will be no swimming either. 

We have been spoiled by walks and leisurely swims on beaches and nightly braais (barbecues) on said beaches for the past two weeks. 

We visited Allen's Pensacola Cay which has bushes and beaches and a Hilton sign painted on a shack. It has a few trails that lead to huge trees, littered with boater's names and dates of visiting. Those who'd come before us. And so we set to making our own sign to leave a legacy of plastic beads and good vibes. While our friends and family afar worked at desks, we worked on our sign and we hung it with pride.

And then that task was completed and the beaches had all been walked and inhaled and photographed. 

We haven’t been to an island with more than 6 people as it’s population. It’s been refreshing and special and peaceful.

But we crave a bit of civilization after a while. And even a burger. Last night at Da Valley we sat at the one table and gasped and moaned in gastronomic ecstacy as we gobbled down burgers and fries. And yes, they are NOT on our diet but every rule has been thrown out the window as we emerge from the beachy wilderness into the cosmopolitan metropolis of Fox Town.

Fun times with friends at Da Valley

Today, with no agenda, we’ll probably take the dinghies out in search of a deserted beach…