Grand Bahama, an underrated Caribbean travel wonder


On Grand Bahama Island, Gold Rock Creek meanders slowly through a forest of red mangroves in Lucayan National Park. Our family of four paddles tandem kayaks along the brackish waterway, spotting a great blue heron overhead and a snowy egret wading in the shallows.

Sam Rampersad, our guide with Grand Bahama Nature Tours, points out the upside-down jellyfish that look like aqueous snowflakes feeding on the bottom of the creek. He gestures to dead branches denuded of leaves, evidence of Hurricane Dorian, which devastated the island in 2019.

“Mangroves are very important for coastal protection, and they help build wetlands,” Rampersad explains.

They also provide a crucial nursery for fish. Needle nose gar, barracuda and sea turtles are common in this salty fresh water, and conch — the Bahamas’ most famous food — starts its life in the mangroves as pin-sized gastropods, he says.

“The mangroves will come back,” states Rampersad. “Nature needs time to heal.”

Three years post-hurricane, and just a few months after the Bahamas dropped its COVID travel restrictions, it’s not just the wetlands starting to flourish again. Grand Bahama is making a comeback, playing up its unique ecosystem and deserted beaches to attract travellers with an affinity for nature. That’s why our family is here.

Located east of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Grand Bahama Island isn’t as well known as New Providence, home of Nassau; it welcomed just 280,000 visitors in the first 10 months of 2022, compared to Nassau’s 2.4 million.

Though the hurricane’s wreckage is still visible, from abandoned homes to the numerous graveyard forests of dead pine trees, tourism to the island is on the upswing — direct weekly flights from Toronto to Freeport (about three hours, 15 minutes, non-stop) started up again in December.

You may still feel like you have the island to yourself, though.

After kayaking, we see Lucayan National Park’s other attractions, including the oddly deserted Gold Rock Beach, one of the country’s prettiest, where scenes from the second and third “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies were filmed.

The park also protects one of the world’s longest charted underwater cave systems, where the preserved remains of six Indigenous Lucayans were discovered in 1986. We explore the two caves open to the public and encounter just a handful of tourists.

Grand Bahama is home to two additional national parks. Peterson Cay, a limestone islet, shelters nesting seabirds and a surrounding reef, while Rand Nature Centre in Freeport is a hot spot for wintering northern songbirds between October and May.

With so many attractions and activities, from snorkelling tours to sampling conch at the local fish fry at Smith’s Point every Wednesday night, it’s surprising the island still seems so sleepy. Upcoming changes — including plans for a soon-to-be-redeveloped airport and a new Carnival cruise port — should wake it up somewhat.

Our family’s nature education comes together at Coral Vita, the Bahamas’ only coral farm, where we find out on a tour that a whopping 50 per cent of the world’s coral reefs are dead.

Their decline is partially a result of overfishing, poorly managed shoreline development, and careless recreation by snorkellers and boaters. But the primary culprit is climate change: warmer water temperatures and higher acidity levels can cause mass bleaching of coral, and this is happening more frequently, says Veronica Cuccurullo, Coral Vita’s operations manager.

“I’ve been diving my whole life, and I’ve seen this tremendous change here,” says Cuccurullo. “And this isn’t just in Grand Bahama; this is a global issue. Our economy relies heavily on coral reefs — people come here to see the beach and go snorkelling.”

Over the years, I’ve noticed dead coral more frequently on tropical holidays, so it’s fascinating to learn what’s being done to help restore these underwater treasures.

At Coral Vita, coral plugs are placed onto "cookies" like this, growing together over time.

Opened in 2019 and named the Earthshot Prize’s “Revive Our Oceans” winner in 2021, Coral Vita grows 18 different coral species on land, rather than in the sea like other coral farms. The company is attempting to engineer climate-change-resilient coral using an “assisted evolution” process.

Basically, Coral Vita selects coral that have proven naturally hardier and then manipulates the water quality and temperature, which scientists have found leads to “higher survivorship” of coral once they’re planted back onto reefs, says Cuccurullo.

The company micro-fragments, or cuts, healthy coral, and then puts similar fragments together. This causes them to grow 50 times faster than they would in nature — kind of like how a cut on your finger mends quickly. In this way, a brain coral can grow in months rather than years like it would in nature, Cuccurullo explains. When the coral are ready, they’re outplanted onto local reefs.

“This isn’t something that happens overnight,” says Cuccurullo. “We’ll make a difference, but it will take a while.”

Though not as exciting as kayaking over jellyfish or exploring caves, Coral Vita is an “aha” moment for us.

“Coral are dying everywhere, not just in the Bahamas, so it’s important to protect them,” echoes my animal-loving 17-year-old daughter, Avery. She’s particularly struck by Cuccurullo’s description of reefs as “the cities of the ocean” — where all the colourful fish congregate, as she’s seen on previous travels.

To put our new knowledge to the test, we snorkel right off Fortuna Beach, where our Viva Wyndham resort is located. Not 10 metres from shore, we find coral heads with healthy brain and finger coral, two species we saw growing at Coral Vita.

All around us dart small reef fish — rainbow-striped wrasse and yellow tangs — which we learned clean algae off the coral to keep them healthy. My daughter and husband even spot a stingray huffing through the sand, likely hunting for small fish or crustaceans.

After five days in paradise, we’ve come to appreciate Grand Bahama’s empty postcard beaches, laid-back vibe, and the passionate residents trying to protect its land and sea wonders. It’s not as glitzy as neighbouring Nassau, but for nature lovers that’s part of what makes it grand.

Lisa Kadane travelled as a guest of the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, which did not review or approve this article.

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