Don't It Always Seem to Go

"That you don't know what you've got till it's gone...

Bahamas Updates

I just got off the phone with the president of the Association of Bahamas Marinas. The situation in the Bahamas is much, MUCH worse than we've heard so far.

Apparently, the Exumas moorings are a "test case" to gauge how the concept of mooring fields will be accepted. If it's positive, there are plans for up to 1500 moorings throughout the Bahamas. In other words - no anchoring without paying, and costs of ~$1100 per month for a 40 foot boat.

I conducted a poll online in several cruising groups, looking for what actual cruisers are thinking about what’s going on. The results are below, and are not good news for the Bahamas tourism industry.

To say that this will destroy the boating tourism business in the Bahamas is not an exaggeration. Cruisers are not the wealthy and privileged types pictured by many.

Cruisers are mostly retired and living off pensions and investments. They are careful with their funds, because what they have must last until they pick up the anchor for that last time. The picture many have of wealthy yachters is nowhere near the reality.

While the purported goals of the mooring field are laudable, there are significant questions surrounding the procedure - actually, the lack of procedure - that has brought us to this point.

According to the cease and desist order filed against this operation by Exuma officials, the required permissions were not given as the requisite studies were never performed. There are questions floating around Nassau and the Exumas about how certain people are benefiting from this project, and about the actual benefits to the environment - benefits that cannot be adduced because the studies to demonstrate them have not been done.

For those currently in the Bahamas, I say “enjoy yourselves, this may be the end of it”. For those who have not experienced the beauty and the tranquility of the Bahamas, you need to make your concerns known as loudly as you can, and let the Bahamian government know that you will not accept being made into a cash cow to enrich a few privileged people; that you will not accept their bogus rationale that these moorings will protect the seagrass when any fool looking over the side of their boat can tell you there’s no grass there, but only sand.

To the government of the Bahamas which has issued a public statement regarding this venture, and which appears to favour it, boaters now say farewell. You are about to kill your Golden Goose, all for the sake of enriching a few friends of the government.

As a closing song to this article, I recommend Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi - it’s opening line, “They paved Paradise, and put up a parking lot” pretty much describes what is about to happen in the Bahamas.

And to Prime Minister Davies, a word of caution also from Joni Mitchell - “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…”