Our Grand Adventure

Inagua Life

Inagua is a largish island at the bottom of the Bahamas chain, with a small population of approximately 800 people. Tourists generally don’t make it that far south and the island doesn’t have any hotels at all; couple this with the sparse flights and it feels very remote indeed. The main source of income for the island is a massive salt mine (Morton Salts) which employs most of the locals.

From a cruiser viewpoint, it also seems like most cruisers just come by the town anchorage for a few hours to check in or out at the customs & immigration office. With a horribly rolly anchorage out the front, they then move on very quickly to the Man of War Bay (slightly north) or onwards to another island. So most people really only spend a few hours, or maximum a few days in the town.

The Friendliest People

Walking around Inagua is very easy, with wide flat roads and very little traffic. The only complaint would be it can be steaming hot, with very little shade and the bright sun beaming down. But, the Inaguan folks are very kind, and nearly every time we walked anywhere someone would pull over and offer us a lift. Often, we would laughingly tell them that we needed to go for a walk because we were going stir crazy on the boat!

After a few weeks, we started getting new conversations – Hey! You have been here before! You are back! We were starting to be known as the people on the boat in the dock waiting for Caterpillar parts. It felt like the whole town knew us in a few short weeks.

Maintaining Sanity

We decided that every day, we would get off the boat and go do something, anything, in the evening. We started going to the local sports field and throwing a frisbee each evening – although we started out pretty horrendous I like to think we got a bit better each day. Maybe not haha. Of course, we would often gain a crowd of enthusiastic kids who wanted to play too. I must say these kids were incredibly polite and generally good sports about letting everyone have a go. Ryan was very popular because, as many of them told us, “We have a Ryan in our class!!!!” Incredibly low bar to impress them, hahaha. Of course we told them a series of tall tales about riding kangaroos to school, having pet emus, hahaha.

We also went walking all around the town and checked out a number of old ruins, including the old town prison, docks and what might have been a hotel. The various hurricanes that have blown through over the years have destroyed a number of buildings that look like they would have been quite beautiful at one time. The ocean front of the town has a lot of tidal pools which also make for a pleasant wander at low tide in the evening.

There are a lot of really chill town dogs around who have the run of the place, but everyone warned us to carry a stick also to scare off some of the “bad” dogs that also lurked. Thankfully, we didn’t have any run ins, although, on a couple of occasions we were warned off certain routes we were heading towards by a passing local. I think most of them thought we were completely loco as no one else there was walking anywhere!

Lighthouse Bar & Restaurant

We found ourselves regularly walking out to the Lighthouse restaurant and bar, this is run by the same family that invited us in for their birthday celebration when we first arrived. It was a nice walk, along the coast line. They served a crazy delicious lunch, and enjoying a beer on the verandah after was a great way to kill time. The family that run the place are a bunch of fun and I felt like we bumped into them everywhere. They were party incarnate as their out-of-town sister who lives in Dubai was sticking around a bit to try and wait and see what would happen with the Iran war situation. Everywhere we saw them they were always down for a chat or a drink and a dance.

Sunday BBQ

One of our other favourite places was a little place at the opposite end of town, also about half an hour down the beachfront, called “Da Plane”. This is the closest thing Inagua has to a nightlife, and on Sunday evenings it is the place to be, with a delicious BBQ grill and sports on the big screen all afternoon, followed by loud music and party vibes as the evening goes on.

The bar staff also light up a huge bonfire (with loads of petrol assist of course) and one evening, we were also treated to the local brass band showing up to play a few songs. I was most impressed when the one-armed BBQ Chef who turned out to be an enthusiastic trombone player!

Beaches – a long walk

It’s very surprising to me that the town has no beaches close – but we decided to walk about an hour up to one of the coves nearby for a swim. Although the swim was delightful, the hot walk back left us sweatier than when we started haha.

Local Fishers

The dock was lively each morning with fisherman heading out, and then again in the afternoons when they returned with their catch. One day, one of the local boats came loose and was floating out the harbour, so we took off in our dinghy to rescue it. As we were towing it back in, the man who owned the boat saw us and was so relieved we had saved it – he was very cheerful to see us after that becoming another friendly face round town to say hello to!

We also met an American family on holidays who were mad keen on fishing! They went out every day and came back with the most impressive hauls! Their little boy was always so proud to show us all their finds each day on return – here is one of the lobsters they gifted us! Enormous!

Waiting, waiting, waiting

We looked for ways to entertain ourselves on the boat while waiting for our parts. I started a series of drawings of fish which was a great time-consuming activity, we played a bunch of computer games and did a few boat projects. A bit of AI learning was done and of course this kicked off a few different projects of various software apps to make some of our boat tasks easier. 🤓

When we had a few rainy days we got very enthused about building a temporary water catchment system! This was perfectly timed to give the boat a wash and also meant we didn’t have to dinghy water over to the boat.

Of course, we were there long enough that the rain water wasn’t enough for the whole time, so we had to still dinghy over a few loads of water. 3 or 4 trips with the dinghy bladder does about 10 days of water for us.

Block Party & Basketball

Once folks realised we would be around for a while, we started hearing about the various events going on round town. I met Tial at the laundry, and she was particularly awesome at letting us know what was on.

We tried some conch salad and conch fritters at a local block party, where we also ran into the parents of some of the kids we had been playing frisbee with.

There was a basketball competition one weekend and we watched the local guys get thrashed by a high school team from Nassau. Not being big basketball fans ourselves, the real highlight was trying the Donkey Kebabs – a true Inaguan specialty. These are a rich, meaty kebab, with a similar texture to a pulled beef, soaked in a thick, sweet barbecue sauce. Of course, I forgot to get a picture, but it honestly just looked like a beef kebab – very tasty!

Waiting in Inagua was such a strange mixture of feelings. Even though we desperately wanted our parts to come, and were frustrated by many delays, I also found myself loving the town and the people there. I found myself dreaming about how to work things to come and build a renewable energy plant for the town so that I could come back to this amazing place. I think Inagua will always have a special place in my heart.