Clarence Town is a lovely harbour with two distinctive churches with Spanish style towers on the hillside over looking the town. It is a prosperous looking settlement from the water, as was Rum Cay, but Clarence Town seems to have survived the recession much better. This is obviously due to the upscale resorts nearby and the Flying Fish Marina which is extending and looks very new and modern. Several large flying bridge sports fishing boats were in residence. As we went in to get fuel we saw several large Lemon sharks lurking around the jetty. One of them would have been at least 8ft long. The reason for their interest was soon clear, the filleting table was near the shore and the fishermen were just dumping big Mahi Mahi carcasses in the water. There was also a very small sign that suggested that swimming was a bad idea.
We spent two days there and went exploring at the blue hole at the southern end of the harbour.
The sun, sea and sand were lovely but there was quite a lot of rubbish about. We walked around the point and found two grey torpedo shaped containers and hundreds of small plastic packets, now full of water and sand littering the uninhabited island which faced away from the township. Mmm. We cut our sun baking short and went elsewhere.
The weather forecast indicated that winds were building from the east so we took the weather window for the Crooked Islands. Following in the footsteps of Christopher Columbus as he travelled down the Crooked Passage in 1492. The harbour at Clarence Town is fully protected but difficult to get out of in an easterly. As we went out we could see why, the swell was impressive as the Atlantic Ocean tries to funnel into the entrance. More motor sailing as the wind died and clocked to the south east. Argh. There was a brief flurry of excitement as a large school of Tuna started chasing their lunch, competing with a small black and white seabird which gamely landed on the water in the midst of the hungry fish. Unfortunately they didn't like our lures so we ended up dining on canned fish instead.
We anchored late off Long Cay aka Fortune Island. The fragrance from the land was incredible. This area is sparsely populated though Albert Town on the ocean side once had 2000 inhabitants as it was a coaling station. Nowadays it would be lucky to have 30 people living there. In this area they still harvest Cascarilla bark to send to Italy for Campari and Maderia bark for medicine and perfume. The historical version of food miles. This morning it rained and we gratefully washed the decks, water usually being too precious to waste on deck washing. Our last load of water cost 30cents a gallon.
Then the skipper scanned the shore line and to our amazement here were flamingoes. This is going to sound really obvious but they are shocking pink. If, like I have, you have seen them in zoos they are impressive but to see a flock of around a hundred they are something else again. Posed on pure white sand in clear blue green water it could be a David Hockney painting, hyper real and not totally believable.
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