This island group was the first area settled by the British more than 300 years ago. The main island is long and thin: 110 mi/175 km long, averaging only 1.5 mi/2.5 km in width. Because it has three airports—Governor's Harbour, North Eleuthera and Rock Sound—and is visited by daily flights from Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Nassau, it's one of the most accessible of the Out Islands. Be sure to find out which airport is the correct one for your hotel before arranging your flight. Get it wrong, and you could find yourself facing a taxi ride of 90 mi/145 km or more—expensive, not to mention inconvenient. Use Governor's Harbour if your destination is in Rainbow Bay, Palmetto Point, Double Bay or Ten Bay; use North Eleuthera if you are headed to Harbour Island or
Gregory Town; and use Rock Sound if heading to South Eleuthera, where accommodations are thin.
The coasts of the island are very different: Although waves pound the east side, the sea on the west side is often as smooth as a pond. At Tan Bay Beach, 2 mi/3 km north of Savanna Sound, you can wade 400 ft/125 m out into the ocean at low tide and the waves will still be below your knees.
Because the main island is so long, plan part of your time on the north end and part on the south. When you're on the north end, stay on one of two smaller islands—Harbour Island or St. George's Island. Our favorite is Harbour Island (called "Briland" by locals). Briland's Dunmore Town is one of the oldest and most beautiful towns in the Bahamas. It has real character: Its pastel-colored houses with white picket fences resemble New England cottages (reflecting its British Loyalist heritage), and the hilly streets make for a pleasant place to stroll. The gorgeous pink-sand beach is wide and long (and, at times, home to sand flies—take along repellent). Harbour Island offers fine diving, golf and tennis. Titus Hole, a cave, is also located there.
Another cave of note, back on the north part of the main island, is called Preacher's Cave, where some of the area's 17th-century settlers took shelter when shipwrecked. There's also an underground train wreck to explore (actually, it's the wreck of a barge that contained a load of train cars bound for Cuba). Some of the Bahamas' finest hotels are there, there are several fine-dining restaurants, and the music scene is lively and fun. Harbour Island can be reached by high-speed hydrofoil from Nassau.
St. George's Island has the town of Spanish Wells, whose blond-haired, blue-eyed residents are descended from a few families of English and Scottish fisherfolk. They are among the most affluent in the Bahamas because of the town's crawfish trade. The town, which is the closest thing to an English village in the Bahamas, is now a yachter's haven. While you're there, stop at the quilting shop and visit the Spanish Wells Museum for more information about the history of the settlement. Accommodations there are limited, however, as Spanish Wells isn't established for tourism.
When traveling to the south end of the main island, stop at the Glass Window (a narrow stretch of land that forms a natural bridge between the smooth and rough waters of the ocean) and the Blow Hole (water shoots straight up through eroded rock, when conditions are right). Also en route, near Gregory Town (home of pineapple rum), are the Caves, a series of limestone caverns—it's easy to get lost, so take a guide. Gregory Town has many fine old Georgian buildings, and several beautiful beaches nearby have all-inclusive hotels.
On the south end of Eleuthera are the Ocean Blue Hole (in Rock Sound—go there to feed the fish), Tarpum Bay (a small artists' colony, where fisherfolk go daily at 3 pm to sell their catch) and many resorts. The sights of Eleuthera could be seen in two hectic days, but if fishing, golf, superb diving and lazing on beaches sound appealing, plan to stay a week. Many visitors find that settling down for an entire week in Harbour Island is a perfect lazy holiday.
For a tour of the area, Bahamas Out-Island Adventures specializes in activity tours of Eleuthera.
Phone 242-551-9635. http://www.bahamasadventures.com.
