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ELEUTHERA BOATING

Included are the formal charters, mostly based in Harbour Island, as well as the locals throughout the island. You can usually fish, and/or dive off any boat you rent. Remmember that the Caribbean side is usually calmer than the Atlantic, although there are exceptional days.

BOATING IN ELEUTHERA

After the Spanish had sold or killed off the original Lucayan inhabitants of the island they called Cigateo, they departed, and it was resettled by colonists from Bermuda who named it Eleutheria, from the Greek word for freedom. Along, skinny, vaguely hook-shaped island, today's Eleuthera has an assortment of attractions for the cruising skipper, including great beaches, good harbors, and small, pleasant villages.

The main settlement, Dunmore Town, is actually located on its own islet, Harbour Island (which sometimes is spoken as "Briland"), about a mile off the north end of Eleuthera. Good shops and marinas, and a safe harbor, as befits an island that was once a shipbuilding community. Steeped in history, Dunmore is a great place to explore on foot, but you can also rent a golf cart

Also just off the north end of Eleuthera, on Charles Island, is the community of Spanish Wells. Originally settled in the mid-17th century, it received a second population transfusion, of Loyalists, at the end of the American Revolution. It's a pretty little place, though the visitor may find it strangely quiet; the reason is that most of the locals live by fishing--and live very well because they work so hard. Nearly everyone on the island is still Caucasian, and (at least when I was there) the effects of extended inbreeding are occasionally quite apparent.

Farther down the main island is nearly landlocked Hatchet Bay For cruising skippers there's the attraction of a good marina--diesel fuel, engine repairs, charters, a marine railway even moorings for rent--as well as the shoreside community of Alice Town. The cliffs along this part of the island remind some people of New England, though nothing in Maine resembles Eleuthera's most remarkable site, the Glass Window A natural rock arch 85 feet above the water, joining the northern and southern parts of the island, it was swept away by a hurricane in 1926 and replaced some years later by a fixed bridge. In 1991, a severe storm moved the bridge's northern end seven feet off its base, but the structure is still in use. Think about that as you cross.