First, the ‘little more’…
We spent the equivalent of four days anchored in Hatchet Bay. The surrounding settlement is Alice Town. It is a calm anchorage with all around protection from big winds and seas. Aside of the loud music on the Friday we arrived, it was also a peaceful anchorage.
The afternoon of the rotten potatoes (see my last post), Saturday the 14th, we made our first excursion into Alice Town. Our goal was to walk the town a bit and find the farm ruins rumored to be about 2/3 of the way across the island toward the Atlantic side. It’s a good-sized town with a lovely public dock in front of Farrington’s Boat Haven (bar, restaurant, convenience store) on the SW side of the bay, and a big cement government dock on the NE side where the Island Link ferry pulls up occasionally (we saw it just the Friday night). There’s a big sandy beach about mid bay on the N side where Masters Marine Boatyard is located. It looks fairly new, I’m glad we didn’t try to land our dingy on that beach, though, because the entire plot is surrounded by high chain link fencing with razor wire on top. Guess they take their security seriously.
Alice Town was hit hard by Hurricane Andrew, and many ruined buildings remain- most abandoned, some patched a bit and still inhabited. Many buildings were either rebuilt or replaced, because overall the town looks good. We found the road leading toward the farm ruins. In 2005 the remaining farm buildings were torn down to discourage the squatters who had taken up residence, mostly Haitian illegal immigrants. All that is left are a bunch of overgrown cement silos and a few metallic and cement odds and ends visible from the road. We’d read that there are still foundations and remnants of other farm equipment, but we were not interested in bushwhacking through the extensive growth to see those. (Thanks to our friends on SV Seas the Moment, who turned us onto the Project Eleuthera website that provided this information.) It was a lovely walk, nonetheless, and we were accompanied by a cute female pooch who’d greeted us as the dock when we first got ashore. She stayed with us until we got back into town.
Now for the cave part…
Sunday afternoon was overcast; a perfect time for the 3-mile walk to Hatchet Bay Cave. We packed our dry bag with a towel, water bottles, granola bars, 3 headlamps and a hand-held flashlight, donned our sneakers, and set out. A little over an hour later we saw the sign for the cave on Queens Highway and turned down the wide dirt road. Ten minutes after that we arrived at a clearing with a short, narrow stone wall with a gap and what looked like the head of a railing. We’d found the nondescript cave entrance. Before we got to it, we were greeted by…puppies! They’d come out of the cave. We counted 8 healthy-looking puppies, but no sign of their mother. We carefully dodged puppies as we walked down the steps into the cave and came to a wooden ladder that led down into the abyss. Fortunately, the puppies didn’t follow us this far; they stayed near the entrance. We spent the next 45 minutes ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing’ our way through the approximately ½ mile of cave. It was the most amazing cave I’ve been in that I didn’t have to pay an entrance fee for. The main portion of the cave would be difficult to get lost in, still, someone had left a long line from one end to the other; comforting as a ‘just in case.’ There was an abundance of stalactites (coming down from the ceiling) and stalagmites (coming up from the ground), and often they joined to form pillars. From the shiny damp surfaces, it was clear that more of these structures are in the process of being built. We found a larger cavern with an even higher roof filled with tiny bats (I read later that they are probably leaf-nosed bats). At one point we turned off all our lights to experience the total blackness of the cave. Impressive! We’ve read that there are other branches to explore, but it looked like they would have required a fair amount of crawling, and the main portion was plenty for us. There was lots of graffiti, which is a bit sad, but the geology was awesome! I want to find more information about the cave’s formation and discovery.
We were very glad Dave brought the high-powered hand-held flashlight, because our headlamps wouldn’t have done the cave justice. We produced just enough light for me to capture some decent photos which I’ve put in this album for you to view. Eventually we saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Dave followed the light to find a rope ladder leading out, but he said it would be a muddy climb, so we decided to go back the way we came. Besides, we had no idea where the back entrance would put us and the walk from the primary entrance was long enough. The rear entrance was just after a large hole with another ladder. Before heading back, Dave looked down into the hole and wiggled the sketchy ladder, but we decided that since it was just the two of us it wasn’t worth the risk. (I read later that it can be very muddy down there and that water comes in depending on the tide, so really good decision on our part.) It took all of 10 minutes to get back to the main entrance. We stopped to love on the puppies once more, then headed back out into the fresh air. We got out just in time to help a couple of carloads of people with some information about what they’d find inside, then we set off on the long walk back. At this point, the skies had cleared and the sun was out, so it was a hot walk, but the 6 mile round trip was totally worth it!!!
By the time we got back to the boat we were exhausted, sweaty and our clothes were filthy. We showered, changed, made fruity rum drinks and zoned out in the hammocks until we decided to dingy to Boat Haven for dinner where we enjoyed delicious conch burgers and hand-cut French fries, plus another drink each (okay, Dave had two more). When we returned from dinner, we crawled back into the hammocks to listen to Tom Waits’ Nighthawks at the Diner before bed. We slept really well that night!We made one more excursion while at Hatchet Bay, but this post is already long enough, so I’ll leave Sweetings Pond for next time. Until then, enjoy the slide show, stay safe and take care of each other.
Life on Lady 