Bahamas Vacation - How to Choose an Island

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Thinking about a vacation in the Bahamas but don't know which island to pay a visit to? This article will introduce you to every island's exclusive character and the mysteries and adventures it has to supply.

New Providence Island is residence to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas and by far its largest city. Nassau was initially settled in the 1600's and is wealthy with history, such as a lot of genuine pirates. Nassau has some attractive colonial architecture, and on the outskirts, a strip of high-rise hotels and casinos along Cable Beach. Paradise Island, connected to New Providence by a bridge, is property to the gargantuan Atlantis resort with its shark pools and water slides. New Providence delivers golf, tennis, diving, fishing charters, gambling, night life, sight-seeing, and cultural activities.

Half a century ago, Grand Bahama Island, exactly where Freeport is situated, was practically uninhabited. Currently, its port is 1 of the largest in the hemisphere, and the city of 50,000 is well recognized as a resort and cruise-ship destination. The tourism center is Port Lucaya, which attributes a sizeable marina, high-rise beach resorts, shopping, and dining. In contrast to New Providence, Grand Bahama has much less populated regions as properly, with deserted beaches and tropical pine forests. The Lucayan National Park includes a nature preserve and vast underwater cave program.

The Abacos, the acknowledged sailing capital of the Bahamas, are among the world's most beautiful cruising grounds. Marsh Harbour on Wonderful Abaco is a major boat-charter center as properly as a base for diving and deep-sea fishing. The Abacos were settled by Loyalists who fled New England right after the Revolutionary War, and the islands are identified for their Cape-Cod-style houses with clapboard siding and picket fences. To contrast its quaint villages, Abaco has various main resorts total with championship golf courses and acres of condominiums.

The Exumas are a chain of over 300 islands and cays. Aside from Great and Small Exuma, which are the two largest, most are uninhabited-and that is half the enjoyable. Like the Abacos, the Exumas are terrific cruising grounds. The largest settlement is George Town on Great Exuma, a village of 1000 souls with a fine harbor. The Exuma Cays Land and Sea National Park, at the north of the chain, is well-liked with divers, and even has a couple of nature trails for landlubbers. Exuma also has quite a few key resorts, including the Four Seasons at Emerald Bay.

Hemingway's well-known "Island in the stream," Bimini lies in the Gulf Stream, just 50 miles from the east coast of Florida. Hemingway helped make it famous as a center of deep-sea fishing, and it remains so to this day. Bimini-which is basically two islands and a quantity of cays--is also a common cruising ground, and the key settlement, Alice Town, caters to the yachting crowd. Bimini has 1 main resort, Bimini Bay, but is otherwise still really rustic. Bimini's other claim to fame is Bimini Road, a highway of stone in twenty feet of water that some think is a remnant of the lost city of Altantis.

With sixty miles of beaches and only a couple of dozen hotel rooms, Eleuthera is a paradise for beach lovers who take pleasure in privacy and unspoiled natural beauty. Eleuthera is an island of rolling green hills and sleepy villages. The guidebooks are fond of noting that Eleuthera has not a single targeted traffic light, but that is not surprising when you consider that most of it has only one road. Needless to say, there is little need for a map, and on an island less than a mile wide for long stretches, you are never ever far from the beach.

Andros is by far the largest of the Bahamian islands, with an area of 2300 square miles. The interior, stated to be the largest still-unexplored landmass in the globe, is residence to six-foot iguanas and the rare Bahamian boa constrictor. Sasquatch has not been sighted, but only given that no 1 has braved the iguanas and boas to look for him. The east coast of the island, the only populated area, has scattered villages and miles of spectacular beaches. Just offshore is Andros's other awesome attraction, a vast barrier reef-the second largest in the world.

Lengthy Island is 1 of the couple of Bahamian islands which does not depend primarily on tourism. Fishing, and to a lesser extent agriculture, nonetheless predominate. The island was settled by American Loyalists from the South, who came with their slaves and established plantations. The soil would not support large-scale farming, then again, and the plantations had been gradually abandoned. Their ruins can nonetheless be observed. Long Island is also home to Dean's Blue Hole, 1 of the deepest in the globe and a spectacular sight with its high cliff walls.

Fifty miles long and with a population of 1600, Cat Island is a place for people today who want to get away from the hustle and bustle of, for example, rural North Dakota. Cat has lots of miles of deserted, pink-sand beaches, and a central ridge that reaches 200 feet, the highest elevation in the Bahamas. A monastery recognized as the Hermitage, hand-built by an Anglican clergyman turned Catholic priest, is located atop the peak. Aside from heaven itself, a hermit could hardly have identified a far better place for peace and quiet.

Columbus created his initial landfall in the new globe on the Bahamian island of San Salvador. There are four monuments to the event scattered about this lonely island of 1000 souls. The interior of San Salvador is taken up largely by salt lakes and marshes, and the only road follows the circumference of the island. San Salvador is nearly entirely surrounded by a reef and has some of the most beneficial diving in the Bahamas, including cave diving and wreck diving. The beaches are also wonderful. The island is household to the Bahamas' only Club Med, a vast resort of 200 rooms, one of the most luxurious in the Club Med chain.