Hans and I had other plans, but the weather was bad enough that we couldn't get anywhere else. Sandy Point, for us as well, was an afterthought. We fill the van with fishing spears and snorkeling equipment and a stash of food, and some flashlights and a map of the island, and a birding guide. A tent and sleeping bags.
After you pass Marsh Harbour, Abaco's capital and the third largest city in the Bahamas, after you cruise through the island's only stoplight, all development begins to subside and Abaco becomes a road darkened by the pines.
The pines narrow at times on either side and give way to stillwater thick with shrubs and odd trees. These are Abaco's vast mangrove systems. If they're on the left side of the road, they are probably part of one of many brackish lips protected from the Atlantic. If they're on our right side, they are most likely an inland part of Abaco's marls - a hundred miles of barely navigable water covered in sandy shoals and dense mangrove thickets.
We walk out into the mangroves barefoot, following a system of red mangrove trees covered in a variety of snails and insects. Hans crouches near the water and says, "I bet that in a minute, water is going to rush in here."
You're probably right, I am thinking. But what he means is literally one minute. This is shallow, flat, Bahamas water - imagine a beach so flat it's five miles wide - so when the Atlantic tide is rising, these mangroves are bound to inundate instantly.
And suddenly it happens, the water pours in like a hurricane surge in miniature, filling the rivulets and making a muddy backwater look like a gentle lake in a moment. Thinking back at that moment haunts me because in a few hours we will learn about the Tsunami in Indonesia.
This tidal process, twice a day, was for most of history misunderstood. The tides are linked undeniably to the health of both the mangrove and the sea itself.
