High on the Hog in the Bahamas

By Dean Meadors

“Tourism isn´t just ‘very important’ here,” says a staff member of the Bahamas Tourist Office. “It´s all that´s important here.”

Indeed it is. Nassau is tourist hungry and tourist dependent. Virtually every part of this island Commonwealth you´ll see as a garden-variety tourist is here for you. What doesn´t exist naturally is built for you…or is probably under construction now.

My destination this trip was Paradise Island (changed from its original, less inviting name of Hog Island), a shiny jewel in a virtual necklace of tropical islands beginning just 50 miles from Florida and extending 750 miles southward to the Caribbean Sea.

The Bahamas is an archipelago of more than 700 islands, lying green and flat in shallow, clear seas and surrounded by beautiful ivory-white sand that squeezes up between your toes as you walk. Oddly, the Bahamas lie in the North Atlantic, not in the Caribbean as most visitors believe.

Think of the Bahamas as three different places: Grand Bahama Island with the city of Freeport; New Providence Island with the capital and tourist center of Nassau (connected by bridge to Paradise Island); and all the other islands known as the Family Islands.

The ocean here sparkles with that blue-green cleanness that always makes me feel sad about what America has done to its own shorelines and lakes. Have you ever seen those pictures in brochures of boats floating in 10 or 15 feet of water, seemingly suspended in air above the sharp, clear shadow of itself on the sandy bottom? Sure you have. And you´ll see it often in the Bahamas.

The islands here are blessed with clean seas and underwater visibility that can extend up to 200 feet. In the entire 700-island chain, not a single river exists to carry waste and refuse out to sea. And the islands themselves are primarily coral and limestone, natural filtering agents that work to reduce the amount of manmade pollutants seeping to sea. That, coupled with an almost total lack of industry or mining, means the air is clear too. No island this blessed with natural beauty could possibly continue with the name “Hog.”

The population and activity center is Nassau. Luxury hotels, gambling casinos, T-shirt shops and fast food restaurants with familiar names compete for business along seaside streets. There´s much to compete for. More than 3 million visitors, each with credit cards, come annually to eat, drink, gamble, and sunburn.

You´ll see about as much cement, steel and glass as you could find on one island and still call it tropical. There may be more sheer activity per square foot here than in Williams Square at noon. And considering there are fewer residents in the entire Bahama chain than in the city of Irving, you can appreciate how intense the tourism industry is here.

It is the water, of course, that brings my wife Judith and I to Nassau. I readily admit I feel landlocked and dry in the plains of Texas, and as much as I like Las Colinas, I´m glad the wonders of the world´s oceans lie less than three hours flying time from DFW, closer even than New York or San Francisco.

We´re divers, you see, addicted to strapping steel tanks of air to our backs and bubbling our way to the canyons of coral reefs and curious fish that lie within 100 feet of the surface. There´s no other feeling quite like it. SCUBA divers and astronauts alone share this experience of solitude and quietness, gliding weightlessly past sights that only appear above or below the Earth´s surface, never on it.

The Bahamas offer miles of beautiful coral reefs, teeming with life and color, slowly changing shape and dimension. There are shipwrecks and movie sets, sharks and sea urchins, vertical walls and so-called “blue holes” that plunge hundreds of feet through the surrounding coral. (A note to divers: there are many dive shops in the Nassau/Paradise Island area, not all of them equally adept at giving you a good dive experience. Ask other divers for their opinions; my own is to use Dive Dive Dive, Inc.)

Back on the surface, construction on hotels and other tourist facilities continues at a furious pace. They take their tourism very seriously here, and have for many years.

Columbus first opened the islands for Europeans, landing on Guanahani (now called San Salvador) in 1492 while seeking a new trade route to the Orient. The islands remained under Spanish influence until 1629 when Britain claimed the islands for the English crown.

In 1973, the Bahamas voted to become an independent country, but also to remain a part of the British Commonwealth. Little of the British accent remains, but Bahamians remain loyal to both the Queen and driving on the left side of the road.

By 1850, the first official Tourism Encouragement Act had been passed, and the number of visitors began growing. While most of today´s tourists are American, you´ll hear a wide variety of European and Asian languages as you travel around the islands.

The second economic force here is banking, where Swiss-like secrecy laws make international deposits very attractive to investors. More than 350 banks and trust companies are represented in the Bahamas and today the area is a major Eurodollar trading center.

Sadly, the biggest disappointment for many visitors is the rather casual attitude (to be kind) toward visitors on the part of local workers. Do not expect employees here to treat you with the friendliness, respect and helpfulness you had on your last trip to Hawaii. You´ll be sadly disappointed if you do.

The typical Bahamian worker—and I´m including hotel, casino, restaurant and transportation workers in this—will project an attitude somewhere between indifference and annoyance. I saw waiters and waitresses who neither smiled nor spoke cordially through the entire meal. I was jostled by bellmen and other hotel employees jockeying to beat me onto elevators. I won only one such encounter, and the average tourist will do no better. 

I am at a loss to explain all this, especially in an area so crucially dependent on tourist dollars. A 15 percent tip is automatically added to hotel and restaurant checks most everywhere you go, so service personnel don´t really depend on good service for their pay.

Other visitors sharing the same hotels and buses expressed the same experiences. Further, a tourist office spokesman, even prior to our arrival, mentioned the problem and said some improvement in service was being made.

The government, it seems, has taken the case into Bahamian schools in the hope of changing local attitudes at an early age. A special “Bahamahost” program offers instruction in areas such as history, manners, and local customs in hopes of changing the way people look at visitors.

Nevertheless, we also met with instances of genuine kindness and helpfulness. But visitors are well advised to be prepared for an indifferent attitude in some instances, and to not let it become frustrating.

Activities, especially those centered around the water, are available in abundance. There´s fishing, sailing, parasailing, jet-skiing, waterskiing, wind surfing, snorkeling and diving. If golf or tennis is more interesting, there´s plenty of opportunity here too. 

If you´re a regular Mexico visitor, you can expect to pay slightly higher prices in Nassau for these activities. For instance, parasailing is $25 for six minutes, $40 for 12 to 15. Sailing a 16-foot catamaran is $35 an hour plus deposit. Jet-skiing is $25 for every 15 minutes. 

Come evening, there´s nightlife that rivals Las Vegas. The larger hotels offer floor shows, casinos, busy bars and a wide variety of restaurants and shops. Cabs are easy to get and hotel hopping is guaranteed to provide interesting people watching.