Few locations conjure up photos within the thoughts’s eye fairly just like the Bahamas. Think about impossibly blue waters, swaying palm bushes and sugar-sand seashores that spill throughout a horizon painted in watercolor hues, all set to the Junkanoo rhythms of a Goombay drum. The excellent news? It is attainable to seek out all of this in a single weekend; you simply must know the place to look.
This Bahamas weekend itinerary balances the historic allure and full of life beats of Nassau, this island nation’s greatest metropolis, with a lesser-known gem only a 30-minute flight to the east – beautiful Cat Island. Whereas Nassau presents a style of Bahamian metropolis life, Cat Island is the place these quintessential Bahamian desires – from secluded seashores to genuine native experiences – really come to life.
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When to reach: Arrive in Nassau on a Thursday so you could have a while to discover the Bahamian capital earlier than heading to Cat Island, which is served by every day flights on Western Air. The most effective time to go to is from December to April, when the climate is good for exploring – heat relatively than baking sizzling, and dry, although it’s additionally the busiest season, so count on crowds.
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get round and what to pack: Automobiles are the first option to get round within the Bahamas
so take into account renting a automobile or utilizing taxis and lodge shuttles. Site visitors
follows the British system, with left-hand drive autos – drive on the left and keep alert when you
aren’t used to driving like this. Necessities to pack embrace sun shades, reef-safe
sunscreen, a swimsuit and water footwear for rocky sections of shoreline. -
The place to remain:
In Nassau, select between the luxurious Baha Mar (from $275/night time, plus charges), spanning three Grand Hyatt, SLS and Rosewood properties with nice seashores and swimming pools, or Atlantis (from $224, plus charges), with seven
lodging choices starting from family-friendly to ultra-luxurious,
plus a water park and a marine habitat with aquariums and sealife-filled swimming pools. On Cat Island, Rollezz Seaside
Villas Resort (from $259) presents non-public beachside villas, whereas
Greenwood Resort (from $180) is good for water infants with diving, snorkeling
and kite browsing accessible proper off the seashore.
Thursday: Expertise Nassau
spend the day
Use your first day within the Bahamas to get acclimated to Nassau’s fascinating and sophisticated historical past. Make your first cease the Fort Fincastle Historic Advanced – constructed within the late 1700s to defend Nassau from pirates. The fort’s location on high of Society Hill and Bennet’s Hill gives a main vantage level for panoramic views of town. Make sure you cease by the long-lasting Queen’s Staircase (aka The 66 Steps) to study this leafy historic landmark, carved out of stable limestone by enslaved Africans.
Now about these pirates… The Caribbean’s golden age of piracy ran from the late 1600s to the early 1700s, and Nassau was a “hotbed of pirate exercise” based on some historic accounts. Set on a pedestrianized part of George St in downtown Nassau, the Pirates of Nassau Museum presents an informative if considerably corny have a look at the islands’ pirate historical past (assume a lot of tricorn hats and plastic cutlasses).
An arguably extra genuine cease is John Watling’s Distillery, a historic rum distillery housed in a splendidly restored 18th-century property. Named after a Seventeenth-century buccaneer, the distillery presents transient however informative (and free) excursions, relating all the pieces from the islands’ pirate historical past to the complexities of rum making. Sit back within the tasting room for a flight of rum, or pattern the scrumptious home piña colada.
For dinner
Proceed the historic vibes with a meal at Graycliff Resort & Restaurant, housed in a mansion relationship again to 1726. The Graycliff’s magnificence is palpable – the inside is heavy on darkish wooden, classic paintings and Victorian-style furnishings, and a scent of tobacco lingers within the air (the Graycliff model additionally makes its personal cigars).
On the menu, you will discover a fusion of Bahamian and European flavors, with dishes similar to truffle ravioli and recent conch salad as precursors to mains like hog snapper filet and beef tenderloin. Observe that there’s a gown code – trousers are required and a jacket is really useful. That stated, throughout my go to, apparel was a tad extra Margaritaville than Monte Carlo.
After darkish
In case you nonetheless have power, give one in every of Nassau’s cocktail bars a attempt. Bon Vivants Cocktail Bar at Sandyport blends craft cocktails with colourful tropical decor.
Friday: Journey to Cat Island
Morning
Begin off the day with a stroll alongside the seashore. I stayed on the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar, so I wandered all the way down to the lodge’s Cable Seaside, festooned with empty lounge chairs. The water was an ideal Caribbean blue, with its floor damaged by only a handful of early-bird swimmers. Different choices nearer to downtown Nassau embrace Junkanoo Seaside, which is livelier and extra standard with locals, and Saunders Seaside, which is quieter and excellent for a peaceable morning stroll.
Get some breakfast
Nesbitt’s, about 25 minutes from downtown at Delaporte Level, is a high breakfast joint. Bahamian-flag banners cling from the ceiling and a jukebox stocked with hits from the sixties, seventies and eighties sits within the nook. The furnishings is easy however sensible – folding tables and aluminum chairs are scattered across the eating space, and the patio presents a view of the ocean. Strive their pink snapper stew – a scrumptious, creamy, barely spicy dish with hints of thyme and garlic, served with a aspect of grits and tangy scotch bonnet sauce.
Catch your flight
Head to the airport to catch your early afternoon flight to Cat Island. There’s just one service every day so get there early and hear for boarding bulletins; the flight has been identified to take off early if all passengers are checked in. You will be touring on a small regional jet with restricted baggage area, so you will in all probability must test your carry-on bag earlier than boarding. Flight time is round half an hour – ebook a window seat and also you’ll spend all half-hour along with your nostril pressed to the glass looking at these islands sprinkled throughout the ocean.
Arriving on Cat Island
There are few sea routes to Cat Island other than a mail boat that takes 12-15 hours to cross from Nassau (an journey in itself). Planes present the primary connection between Cat Island and the remainder of the Bahamas. Prepare pickup along with your lodging, or lease a automobile from Gilbert’s Automobile Rental.
Cat Island’s fundamental airport (aka New Bight Airport) is an enthralling, single-runway affair with a small terminal constructing housing a single ticketing desk, a safety test and loos (departing passengers wait beneath a cover outdoors the terminal constructing). You may need to attend a bit on your baggage, so linger across the car parking zone and observe the full of life sense of group right here.
Use the afternoon to discover the seashores
Cat Island is an extended strip of land formed like a fishhook, with its eye pointing northwest, and hitting the seashores is the easiest way to settle in on arrival. Usually seashores on the japanese shore, dealing with the Atlantic, are extra uncovered to the weather, with average waves relying on the climate. On the west aspect, the seashores are often calmer.
The seashore at Rollezz Villas Seaside Resort is likely one of the greatest, a west-facing strip of powdery sand that’s primed for beautiful sunsets. On the east aspect of the island, Greenwood Seaside Resort is likely one of the Bahamas’ pink-sand seashores (it’s a mild hue, however pinkish nonetheless). Dine at your lodge and set an alarm so that you may be up shiny and early on Saturday to discover.
Saturday: Discover Cat Island
Morning
Time to absorb Cat Island’s fundamental sights. First, head to the Therapeutic Pond for a refreshing dip; this pure pool has a excessive mineral content material and salinity, and it is believed {that a} dunk right here will remedy all types of aches and pains. The story goes that locals found the water’s therapeutic properties after bathing their workhorses – following a soak, the horses got here out refreshed and able to work. No matter’s occurring right here, the Therapeutic Pond is a lovely place to wash – the excessive salt content material will preserve you afloat, and the water has a pleasant, silky high quality. Convey water footwear because the shore of the pool is rocky and sharp.
For lunch
Make sure you go to Lakeview Motel & Restaurant on the south aspect of the island. Owned and operated by native legend Harrison King, the restaurant serves Bahamian favorites similar to conch fritters, fried mahi-mahi, pumpkin, cassava and recent salad. On Cat Island, native residents put on many hats, and Harrison King has been a college bus driver, police officer, native farmer and motel proprietor at varied instances.
If he is round, he’ll entertain you with tales of life on the island, and anecdotes about getting misplaced whereas land crab looking, or what it is prefer to put on a badge on one of many Bahamas’s most laid-back islands. Ask and he’ll present you round one in every of his close by farms, and share insights into the powerful however rewarding work of native farmers on Cat Island. That watermelon for dessert? It was possible plucked straight from one in every of Harrison King’s plots.
Within the afternoon
As soon as sated, set your sights on Mt Alvernia, the Bahamas’s highest level at 206ft. Though a modest hummock by mountain requirements, the positioning holds outsized historic significance. Atop the hand-carved steps to the mountain’s peak sits the Hermitage, a tiny monastery constructed by the architect-hermit Father Jerome within the Nineteen Forties. The monastery’s stone partitions add historic weight to the fuzzy hilltop, and the view is likely one of the greatest on the island, taking in 360 levels of shoreline.
For some time, Cat Island was regarded as Guanahani, the Lucayan title for the island the place Christopher Columbus first made landfall in 1492. In the present day, most historians consider Guanahani was truly the island of San Salvador to the east, however many locals nonetheless insist Cat Island was the spot.
Whichever island Columbus reached first, the arrival of the Spanish had a huge effect on the Caribbean, and the world. Over the following many years, Spanish forces eradicated the Indigenous Lucayan inhabitants by way of genocide and enslavement, and the Caribbean grew to become the nexus of the Atlantic Slave Commerce.
Previous to emancipation in 1834, there have been as many as 50 plantations on tiny Cat Island (an island of just a little greater than 150 sq. miles). Twenty of those have been recognized, together with the ruined however nonetheless recognizable Deveaux Plantation, an 18th-century cotton plantation that was house to Colonel Andrew Deveaux.
The colonel was gifted this plot of land by the British after serving to to guard Nassau from the Spanish in 1783. In the present day, simply the partitions and some ceiling beams are standing in the primary home, and the outside stucco is cracked and weathered. Within the cookhouse behind, an enormous tree emerges by way of the open ceiling, as if reclaiming the land from this darkish interval in Bahamian historical past.
Dinner and drinks
Nightlife on Cat Island is often a staid affair, however when you’re fortunate you may catch an genuine rake and scrape session. Historically performed with a goatskin drum and a carpenter’s noticed and screwdriver, rake and scrape is the quintessential folks music of the Bahamas.
Thought to have originated in Turks & Caicos, this casual dance music was created by the descendants of enslaved Africans, who used on a regular basis objects as devices. In the present day, you are more likely to hear an accordion or guitar as a part of the accompaniment, however the rhythmic scraping of the noticed is the fashion’s hallmark.
On Cat Island, native bars similar to Yardie’s in New Bight or Hidden Treasures in Arthur’s City often host enthusiastic rake-and-scrape nights. Do not be shy – rake and scrape is participatory, and also you could be requested to hitch in and study a step or two (even yours really was capable of decide up the straightforward heel-toe motion of the “conch step”). The island’s annual Rake & Scrape Pageant occurs in Might or June.
Sunday: A final style of Cat Island
Morning:
Earlier than catching your midday flight out of Cat Island, swing by Olive’s Bakery in New Bight for guava bread, a candy deal with widespread throughout the tropics, made out of chopped guava, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla.
For a parting glimpse of the island’s intriguing tradition, you should definitely cease at Candy P’s Bush Teas (name forward to substantiate they’re open). Right here, native herbalist Peggy Johnson concocts pure teas utilizing herbs, spices, flower petals and leaves discovered on the island.
Peggy will present you the way she makes all the pieces, from specialty teas similar to “soursop” (a cure-all tonic, stated to spice up immunity, assist digestion and stabilize blood strain) to boutique soaps. This isn’t your grandmother’s chamomile – based on Peggy, a number of of her elixirs even have the ability to reinforce longevity.
By the point you permit, you will be eyeing each leaf and petal in sight, questioning about their hidden powers, however resist the urge to brew your personal yard mix – go away the magic to Peggy and her years of expertise!
Leaving the Bahamas
As I boarded my flight house from Cat Island, the flavors of guava bread and bush teas nonetheless lingered. Starting the gradual, lumbering journey that’s trendy air journey again to the US, I contemplated the richness of my experiences within the Bahamas.
The whole lot I’d pictured earlier than arrival was there – pristine waters simply outdoors my door at Rollezz Villas Seaside Resort, loads of palm bushes, extra stunning sunsets than I’d see in a month again house – however there was extra.
I found a sophisticated colonial historical past within the decaying plantations that dot the island, a wealthy musical custom in an upbeat rake and scrape jam session, and a few rattling good meals. And I barely scratched the floor – there are nonetheless 700 extra islands and cays to discover. I will be again for positive…
