As the island is 40 miles long and about 4 miles wide with few anchorages we could get into, we were advised to rent a car to see the sights. The Cape Santa Maria resort lined us up with a SUV and we drove past many churches, a few primary schools, several settlements as they are called, much dense vegetation and extremely few other motorists to the farmer’s market at Salt Pond. This market had about 8 vendors selling handmade straw purses and placemats, salt, eggs, bread, peas, and jam, and a few green bananas. We then drove to the oldest church (in ruins) behind which we found the “shrimp hole” which literally was a hole (more like a huge cave) in the ground in the jungle, that measured about 8 feet deep with 3 inch long red shrimp in the water. Then we stopped for lunch on the western shore and found the sponge man’s harvest of clean and not so clean sponges drying in the sun.
But the big attraction came afterwards - Dean’s Blue Hole which is the deepest saltwater blue hole measuring 600 feet deep. It was eery swimming around the outer edge looking into the dark abyss, but there were tropical fish on the edge of the hole in about 20 feet of water. Snorkeling adjacent to the hole in the shallow grass, we saw a 7 foot ray glide past us both. Clarence Town, the capital of the island was our final stop where we caught a fisherman cleaning his Wahoo, much to the delight of about 15 sharks under the dock, then it was a long 2 hour drive north and dinghy back to Juno to enjoy a grouper dinner.
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| Local resident Sarah at the Farmers Market |
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| Ruins of a church built on the site of the oldest church in the Bahamas |
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| "Shrimp Hole" |
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| And there are shrimp! |
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| Sponges drying in the sun before going to market |
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| Deans Blue Hole |
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| Harry with 600 feet below |
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| Beautiful 6' wingspan of a local resident near the blue hole |
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| In case Juno doesn't make it to the Tropic of Cancer |
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