Today, the ship that sits near its shores is owned by Disney. It's the so-called Big Red Boat.
Now the island is called Castaway Cay. You cannot see the island from here, only that giant ship.
Disney's boat used to be docked nearer the developed part of Abaco, on an island called Guana. But the dredging project which was designed to keep the Big Red Boat from catching sand, failed, and not only that but the dredging process destroyed huge tracts of one of Earth's largest coral reefs by the silt kept churning through the narrow passage that funnels water between the Atlantic and the Bahama whitewaters.
Disney sells people on an island filled with Caribbean history. Pirate history. But the only Pirates of the Caribbean I can imagine here are those drug runners dropping some innocents off on a lone rock in the ocean.
Now that the drug runners are gone, maybe Disney is the new Pirate of the Caribbean. What vast amounts of drugs passed through these waters can in no way amount to the devastation Disney created in Guana's reef. If Gorda Cay was a refuge for pirates of the 1980's, maybe Castaway is one of the last refuge's for giant cruise ships in the Caribbean.
Just before leaving for Sandy Point, I had read that a new trend in the Caribbean is to begin banning giant cruise ships from entire nations. Islands are beginning to see that the huge amounts of wealth these ships bring to their islands doesn't exceed the negative trashy image they bring to their island. The trend will ultimately make cruise ships seek small refuges such Gorda Cay.
We stop in at Eric's Pub for a Kalik beer. Three guys are sitting at the only table in the darkened room. They wear heavy jackets; Bahamians have trouble with December weather, and drink concoctions of vodka and condensed milk. They tell us about the Tsunami in Indonesia, which at first they call, 'California.'
We talk to them about the Sandy Point fishing industry. I ask if everybody here adheres to the brand new Grouper fishing laws which restrict anyone from fishing for Grouper for two months in the winter. Their answer is a unanimous yes, absolutely. Abaco fishermen take their laws seriously.
We leave Sandy Point and begin tinkering down any old dirt road we can find. The first of these is the road to the Sandy Point dump, which is where you go to dump your 1967 Buick, and your dead dog.
And where the turkey vultures hang out.
The turkey vulture is a lurid creature; with brown and gray wings and a nasty beak with a large nostril. He should dwell on the precipice of hell, but rather he dwells here.
There are about 10 of them, perched on a dead tree above that dead dog. Lurid though they may be, the turkey vultures are amazing. In a BBC documentary, naturalist David Attenborough visits these birds on the island of Trinidad. He takes a cooked piece of beef and hides it in the Trinidad jungle, burying it under leaves. Within three-quarters of an hour, the meat has encouraged a swarm of turkey vultures into the air, from miles away. Somehow, in a manner unknown to science, the turkey vulture is able to smell the faintest, faintest scent of decay and then locate the material by circling in a pattern of increasing scent, until, quite quickly, he is able to locate his decaying meal.
Hoping to run into some Abaco Parrots to make up for these vile monstrosities, we head out on the road to their refuge. Hans the whole time telling me to watch those potholes, it happens with a thud. Tire trashed, no parrots this time.
