George Town - Tour de Force

Our friends on Xanadu invited us to join them on a tour of Great Exuma Island. So on Saturday we headed into town and met up with 13 other boaters for the tour. We were greeted by Christine, a diminutive Bahamian with a big smile and a bigger wig (think James Brown). We all climbed on the bus and headed south out of town. Christine kept us entertained by trying to find herself a husband among the men on the tour. There are some parts of the island where only natives can own land (called "generation land"), and if an outsider wanted to purchase any the only way would be to "chuck that white woman who is your wife and marry Christine". Very persuasive argument. Our first stop was the oldest graveyard on the island where three large tombs rested. The first settlers on the island were the Kays, a husband and wife who came here alone (read: without slaves) in the late 1700's and didn't last long. The wife died in childbirth and was entombed here. The husband died a few years later. Christine told us that there are other guides who tell their tours that the husband was buried in one of the other graves, but she says "Not possible. If he die here all alone, tell me -- who bury him? He not buried here. Who buried in these other two graves? I don't know, nobody know. There no names on them." Refreshingly honest, since she could've made up anything and we wouldn't know the difference.

The next stop was the plantation house. Years after the Kay's brief stay, an American Loyalist named Lord Rolle came here and imported 300 slaves. His overseer, a man by the name of Sayles, built a plantation house which has been preserved through the years. The reason it still stands after nearly 200 years is because local families move there temporarily while their new houses are being built. So over the years people have installed electricity and kept up the roof. Kind of. If you had to live there while your house was being built, conditions would be pretty rough and you'd be sharing your space with several spiders, lots of wasps, and a huge nest of ants. I guess that would be incentive to keep construction moving on your new house. Incidentally, when Lord Rolle died, all 300 slaves were freed and in the tradition of the day they took Rolle as their surname. Which is why nearly everyone in Rolle Town is named Rolle, including Christine.

We stopped for lunch in Williams Town at a beach bar & grille called "Santana's". The proprietress was very friendly and served up some great grouper, shrimp, conch, and steak lunches for us. Her mother, Mom, runs "Mom's Bakery" and every day drives her van from Williams Town up to George Town to sell her cakes and pastries. No one calls her by her real name, she is known to locals and boaters alike as "Mom". After lunch we piled back into the bus and headed back north to George Town. Along the way, Christine pulled over several times to point out plants that had medicinal properties. During the trip she steeped some leaves in boiling water to make a tea which she shared with everyone (I can't remember what it was supposed to cure but it was delicious), and served it with homemade "panny cake" and a coconut confection that tasted like coconut brittle. There's not a whole heck of a lot to see on the island, but somehow Christine managed to make a four-hour tour of it and keep the passengers entertained. Definitely worth the price of admission.