Few locations conjure up photos within the thoughts’s eye fairly just like the Bahamas. Think about impossibly blue waters, swaying palm timber 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 doable to search out all of this in a single weekend; you simply should know the place to look.
This Bahamas weekend itinerary balances the historic allure and vigorous beats of Nassau, this island nation’s greatest metropolis, with a lesser-known gem only a 30-minute flight to the east – attractive Cat Island. Whereas Nassau gives 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 will have a while to discover the Bahamian capital earlier than heading to Cat Island, which is served by day by day flights on Western Air. The most effective time to go to is from December to April, when the climate is right for exploring – heat relatively than baking sizzling, and dry, although it’s additionally the busiest season, so count on crowds.
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Easy methods to get round and what to pack: Automobiles are the main approach to get round within the Bahamas
so take into account renting a automotive or utilizing taxis and resort shuttles. Visitors
follows the British system, with left-hand drive automobiles – drive on the left and keep alert for those who
aren’t used to driving like this. Necessities to pack embody 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/evening, 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) gives non-public beachside villas, whereas
Greenwood Resort (from $180) is right for water infants with diving, snorkeling
and kite browsing accessible proper off the seaside.
Thursday: Expertise Nassau
Easy methods to spend the day
Use your first day within the Bahamas to get acclimated to Nassau’s fascinating and complicated 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 prime of Society Hill and Bennet’s Hill offers a major vantage level for panoramic views of the 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.
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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” in response to some historic accounts. Set on a pedestrianized part of George St in downtown Nassau, the Pirates of Nassau Museum gives an informative if considerably corny take a look at the islands’ pirate historical past (suppose a number 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 gives temporary however informative (and free) excursions, concerning every little thing from the islands’ pirate historical past to the complexities of rum making. Chill 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 Lodge & Restaurant, housed in a mansion relationship again to 1726. The Graycliff’s class is palpable – the inside is heavy on darkish wooden, classic art work 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 may discover a fusion of Bahamian and European flavors, with dishes reminiscent of truffle ravioli and recent conch salad as precursors to mains like hog snapper filet and beef tenderloin. Word that there’s a gown code – trousers are required and a jacket is really helpful. That stated, throughout my go to, apparel was a tad extra Margaritaville than Monte Carlo.
After darkish
Should you nonetheless have vitality, give one among 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 seaside. I stayed on the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar, so I wandered all the way down to the resort’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 embody Junkanoo Seaside, which is livelier and extra in style 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 prime 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 straightforward however sensible – folding tables and aluminum chairs are scattered across the eating space, and the patio gives a view of the ocean. Strive their purple 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 day by 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 house, so you may most likely must examine 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 together with your nostril pressed to the glass looking at these islands sprinkled throughout the ocean.
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Arriving on Cat Island
There are few sea routes to Cat Island apart from a mail boat that takes 12-15 hours to cross from Nassau (an journey in itself). Planes present the principle connection between Cat Island and the remainder of the Bahamas. Organize pickup together with your lodging, or lease a automotive from Gilbert’s Automobile Rental.
Cat Island’s most important airport (aka New Bight Airport) is a captivating, single-runway affair with a small terminal constructing housing a single ticketing desk, a safety examine and loos (departing passengers wait beneath a cover outdoors the terminal constructing). You may need to attend a bit in your baggage, so linger across the car parking zone and observe the vigorous sense of group right here.
Use the afternoon to discover the seashores
Cat Island is a protracted 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. Sometimes seashores on the japanese shore, going through the Atlantic, are extra uncovered to the weather, with reasonable waves relying on the climate. On the west aspect, the seashores are normally calmer.
The seaside at Rollezz Villas Seaside Resort is among 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 among the Bahamas’ pink-sand seashores (it’s a delicate hue, however pinkish nonetheless). Dine at your resort and set an alarm so that you may be up vivid and early on Saturday to discover.
Saturday: Discover Cat Island
Morning
Time to absorb Cat Island’s most important 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. Deliver 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 reminiscent of 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 faculty 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 wish to put on a badge on one of many Bahamas’s most laid-back islands. Ask and he’ll present you round one among 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 among 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 location 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 among the greatest on the island, taking in 360 levels of shoreline.
For some time, Cat Island was regarded as Guanahani, the Lucayan identify for the island the place Christopher Columbus first made landfall in 1492. Immediately, 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 turned 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 somewhat 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 residence 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. Immediately, simply the partitions and some ceiling beams are standing in the principle 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 usually a staid affair, however for those who’re fortunate you would possibly 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. Immediately, you are prone to hear an accordion or guitar as a part of the accompaniment, however the rhythmic scraping of the noticed is the type’s hallmark.
On Cat Island, native bars reminiscent of Yardie’s in New Bight or Hidden Treasures in Arthur’s City sometimes 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 easy 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 frequent throughout the tropics, constructed from chopped guava, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla.
For a parting glimpse of the island’s intriguing tradition, remember to cease at Candy P’s Bush Teas (name forward to verify 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 ways she makes every little thing, from specialty teas reminiscent of “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 – in response to Peggy, a number of of her elixirs even have the ability to reinforce longevity.
By the point you permit, you may be eyeing each leaf and petal in sight, questioning about their hidden powers, however resist the urge to brew your individual yard mix – go away the magic to Peggy and her years of expertise!
Leaving the Bahamas
As I boarded my flight residence from Cat Island, the flavors of guava bread and bush teas nonetheless lingered. Starting the sluggish, lumbering journey that’s trendy air journey again to the US, I contemplated the richness of my experiences within the Bahamas.
All the pieces I’d pictured earlier than arrival was there – pristine waters simply outdoors my door at Rollezz Villas Seaside Resort, loads of palm timber, extra lovely sunsets than I might see in a month again residence – 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 certain…
