Nassau Bahamas

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The Bahamas are near to Florida and Cuba. They were originally inhabited by the Lucayan Indians when British Settlement began in 1647; the islands became a colony in 1783. Independence was obtained in 1973 and the country has become quite prosperous with tourism, international banking and investment being the main industries. The USA trade embargoes on Cuba have helped to increase tourism to the islands particularly the capital Nassau. Because of its position, it has also become a staging point for smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants to both USA and Europe.

A quick stroll around the capital will illustrate that there is a fair amount of prosperity but the main street of Nassau seems to be in recession since the man made ‘Paradise Island’ was opened to tourism.

We start with our arrival.




Night-time approach to Nassau.






These steps lead to an old fort, they were built by the slaves, soon after slavery was abolished, as a memorial; each of the 51 steps represents one year of slavery.






One of the many hotels.






Providence House-described as a country house hotel.







The Governors Mansion-seems to be full of public servants.






Bread Fruit-Captain Bligh originally tried to collect seedlings of this plant from Tahiti to take to the Caribbean as food for the slaves. Mr Christian decided not to take them there. Captain Cook later collected some.






More units or flats.






Some large cruisers, fortunately they left soon after we arriving making the town a bit less crowded.






These tourists were being given lessons on the use of these peculiar vehicles.






Town Houses.






Gulls.






Cruise ships from a distance.






Mansions.






Shops.






Welcome to Adastra Gardens, this is really a zoo with animals and birds.





Macaw-these birds were not tethered at all, according to one of the signs a truck with a trailer would drive round each evening, the birds would hop on to be taken wherever for the night.






Prairie Dogs - like these, find them rather cute.








Cayman or alligator, quite tame compared with a crocodile. They could face a problem with global warming; the sex of the young is determined by temperature, above a certain temperature, all males are born. They do not seem to have reproduction by parthenogenesis so without human intervention it could be the end for lots of them.





Flamingos-these birds are far from natural, a compound is added to their food to promote the bacteria that gives them their colour.






These birds have been trained to march in time to music. They do have a natural tendency to do this in a group when in the wild so not too much actual training was necessary.












Not sure what this bird is, it was roaming free around the zoo but was very nervous when near to humans. I suspect that children had tried to grab it.






We are now back in the town.






Not sure what this notice meant, perhaps they played the Eton Wall game.





Detached Home.






Shipwreck.






Approach to Paradise Island.






Average homes.





We sneaked into Paradise Island at this point.






New millionaires lease these boats, with crew, for about US$100-150,000 per week. They can buy anything except a life.






The Marina.






This was actually a large rear entrance taxi, rather nice inside though and probably more comfortable than a stretch limo.






Rag shop.






Sunset on harbour.






Scots Church.






Local town hall.






Colonial building.






Local pub.







Solicitor’s office.






Library and Museum.






Local shop.







Saw a few nice flowers on Nassau, not able to identify them so here they are without comment:

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