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Harbour Island Bahamas

Despite travel day mishaps on both sides of the trip, Afegirls (and boys) had a phenomenal time in Harbour Island, Bahamas.  This post recaps our adventures and shares our tips and tricks to make the best of your own trip to paradise.

First, a little background

Last summer, AG2 went on a teen tour type trip to Mexico (I know, I know, you want to read about the Bahamas, but bear with me).  In the midst of learning to surf, jumping off cliffs, and volunteering at a turtle rescue center, she bonded with a fellow tripper who happens to live year round on Harbour Island, Bahamas.

Now, in full disclosure, I had never particularly wanted to visit the Bahamas.  This thoroughly thought-out decision was based on two things: my vague impressions of Atlantis Resort as too large, too crowded and too OTT; and second hand reports of excessive pan-handling on the beaches (ugh!).  It really never occurred to me that this impression was solely of Paradise Island (home to Atlantis), and might not apply to the other 29 inhabited islands in the Bahamas.

When Emma returned from Mexico with stories of her friend, I — master Googler that I am — promptly looked up Harbour Island and discovered that it might very well be the antithesis of not-my-idea-of-Paradise Island.  Sometimes referred to as “the Nantucket of the Caribbean,” Harbour Island has a population of around 1,800 permanent residents and is only 3 1/2 miles long by 1/2 mile wide.  Calling the pace of life here “easy” may be understating it.  There are beautiful beaches, great food, friendly people and ample activities, but the main point of this island seems to be RELAX. #AdmittingYouWereWrong

Pink Sand Beach, where are you???

In planning this trip, the pictures that kept me mesmerized were of the beautiful pink sand beach running three miles down almost the entire eastern side of the island.  All four of us were pretty excited to see this must-be-magical beach, and headed over there on our first full day on the island.  Only to find . . . some super nice powdery white sand.  Uh, what??  Emma and I convinced ourselves that, when we had our sunglasses on, the beach looked pink.  Ish.  Maybe?  And when we walked up the beach a ways, we definitely saw some swirls of pink.  Hmmm.  When confused, one must Google (it’s an Afegirls Commandment).

Turns out, the pink comes from a microscopic organism called foraminifera, or forams, which has a reddish-pink shell.  The organism lives on the coral reef that lies just off the beach.  Pieces of the shells, the coral and calcium carbonate wash onto shore and integrate into the sandy beach. Enjoying the science lesson?  Unfortunately, that’s about as far as the facts go.  I found several other reports from disappointed travelers confirming that we were not the victims of sudden-onset family-wide colorblindness — the beach really is not that pink.  Consensus seems to put the blame on Instagram filters.  Which we will also try.  Natch.

Lack of pink notwithstanding, this beach astounded us.  Dan and I argued about whether it’s the best beach we’ve ever visited, and agreed that it’s in the top two (the other one being the Sea Pines beach in Hilton Head, SC).  The sand is powdery soft.  The water is spectacularly clear when in it, and amazingly blue when viewed from the beach.  There are enough waves to keep things interesting — some days enough to body surf, others just enough to make floating fun.  Plus all this incredibleness goes on for three miles!  We walked most of it, and had large portions of it to ourselves.  And that’s some magic right there.

Practical note: you can rent two chairs and an umbrella from TeaJay’s for $20 for the day.  She also sells drinks and snacks, rents boogie boards etc.  Just follow Church Street to Coral Sands and Pink Sands resorts and take the public beach access trail there.  TeaJay’s is at the end of the trail.

When you manage to tear yourself away from the beach . . .

There’s actually a ton of stuff to do.  Top on our list was SCUBA for the boys and snorkeling for me and Em.  We both chose half day trips with Valentine’s Dive Shop.  The boys went in the morning, while we went in the afternoon.  We met for lunch at Valentine’s in the middle.  So cute.  The big positives of Valentine’s are the dive staff — they are awesome!  Knowledgeable and attentive.  We had two newbie snorkelers on our trip, and Neil, our dive leader, spent a ton of time instructing and supporting them.  Our highlight was swimming with sea turtles.  So cool.  Cowabunga, dude.

And now, the nitty gritty:

Getting there:

There’s a little bit of a Planes, Trains and Automobiles feel to it, but it’s actually surprisingly easy.

• Step 1: Book a flight to North Eleuthera, Bahamas.  This will entail flying to Miami or Fort Lauderdale and taking a prop plane over to Eleuthera Island.
• Step 2: After going through customs, catch a taxi over to the dock.  (Seriously, that’s all the instruction I had, and it sounded pretty vague to me too.  But you just walk out the front doors of the airport, and the taxi drivers are right there.  Tell them you’re trying to go to Harbour Island, and they’ll take care of the rest.)  Cost is $5 per person for the taxi ride.
• Step 3:  Take a water taxi to Harbour Island.  The taxi driver from the airport will hand your luggage to the water taxi driver.  All you have to do is step into the boat.  Cost is another $5 per person.
• Step 4: Arrive Harbour Island and make your way to your lodging.  We had a golf cart waiting for us.  Hotels and many rental properties will send a driver for you.  If you’re staying in town, it’s an easy walk from the dock to wherever you’re staying.  As far as I could tell, this was the only piece, other than booking your actual flight, that you needed to give some thought to ahead of time.

One last thought on the plane portion of the trip.  If you’re coming from Fort Lauderdale, you’ll be traveling on Silver Air.  Very nice and friendly people, but they seem to be on island time all the time.  Talking to residents and frequent guests, it sounds like an on-time flight is almost unheard of.   Our flight to Harbour Island was delayed by bees.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Apparently, a hive of bees appeared on the wing of our airplane between the time it landed and the time we were supposed to board (all of an hour).  And this hive was large enough that they had to move the plane, call Dade County animal control, and have the plane sprayed.  Resulting delay was 2 1/2 hours.  At least it wasn’t snakes.  God knows how long it would have taken Samuel L. Jackson to get there.

Getting around:

As Emma can now attest, you can literally walk everywhere on the island.  For those without their own private walking guide, golf cart rentals are the way to go.  We rented a four-person cart from Michael’s Cycles.  Michael met us at the dock with the cart, and one of his guys drove our luggage to our rental house for us.  Next time, we might go with a six person cart instead — easier to cart stuff around.  Also, if you’re not staying in a house on a paved road, you may want to try to find a Polaris or similar type vehicle to rent — I almost tipped our cart trying to drive down a very rough and hilly unpaved road in the northern part of the island.

Lodging:

The big choice here is rental property vs. hotel.  We chose to rent a small house with a pool in the middle of town.  With two teenaged children, we find the house to be around the same price as two hotel rooms, and we love the extra space.  The house we rented is called “The Convent”, because apparently at one time it was an actual convent.  It was amazingly comfortable, and very stylish.  We found it through VRBO, and the owner is quite helpful.  But, of course, there were many things that we didn’t know at the time we made this decision.  Chief among them:

• Location matters.  The town of Dunmore (the only town on the island) is right in the middle.  The super high end houses are on the north end of the island — if the address contains “The Narrows” in it, your neighbors will be bazillionaires, which will be ok because you have paid many tens of thousands for your week there.  Our house was in the middle of town, nowhere near The Narrows..  Across the street from a chicken farmer.  I kid you not, there were about 40 chickens in the two lots across the street from us.  Including multiple roosters.  And I don’t know who started that story about roosters crowing at the break of dawn, because these roosters crowed 24 / 7.  Seriously, there was NO break in the poultry chorus.  Honestly, I don’t know where you can stay to escape the roosters.  We saw them at the hotels by the beach and by the bay and all over town.  (The “why did the chicken cross the road” jokes ran non-stop.)  I’m sure if you stay on The Narrows, you’re going to be rooster free, although your private chef is probably serving a lot of chicken.  Otherwise, pack headphones and make sure your favorite sleepytime playlist is loaded up on your phone.

Dining

Restaurants on Harbour Island are VERY expensive.  Just be prepared.  There are three superstar restaurants on the island:  The Dunmore, The Landing, and The Rock House.  We chose not to eat at any of these, despite the great reviews — just a little more formal and a little more expensive than we were looking for.  Here’s where we did eat:

• Romora Bay: Some locals on the boat ride over were talking about how the happy hour here and the food was getting quite good, so we decided to check it out.  We wished we had stuck with TripAdvisor ratings.  Really, not great.  They DID make a great Goombay Smash — the local specialty drink — and I learned that more than one Goombay Smash makes the drinker Goombay smashed.  Beautiful sunset views though, so maybe go for a drink before dinner and enjoy the sunset.
• Coral Sands: We ate at the beach restaurant twice for lunch, and enjoyed it both times.  Highly recommend the shrimp po-boy.  We also ate here once for dinner.  Also quite good.
• Rooster Tail at Valentines: We actually loved this place.  Ate here once each for lunch and dinner.  Setting is lovely.  Sunset is beautiful and the food is quite tasty.
• Bahamas Coffee Roasters: This place is awesome.  Great coffee.  Wonderful breakfast.   Sadly only open until 3.  So, if you need late afternoon or evening caffeine, you’ll have to figure out something else.
• Acquapazza: Italian restaurant on the bay with a great sunset view.  I recommend calling for a reservation.  Not because you need one, but because you’ll get a ton of attitude if you show up without one.

We found the service everywhere to be very hit or miss.  Mostly miss.  It wasn’t that servers weren’t friendly, they just were on their own time schedule.  We gradually grew accustomed — but, whenever they do appear, order drinks if you think you might ever want another one because you don’t know when you’ll see them again.  Also, service charges are included in the bill, so you only need to tip if you think your server went above and beyond.

The other thing that took some getting used to was the flies.  They swarm when the food appears.  Makes the chickens appear like the minority species on the island.  The restaurants put out sterno containers, which do a decent job of keeping the flies away.  Did beg the question of what was happening in the kitchens.  We chose not to think about that one.

Money

The Bahama currency is equal to the US dollar — they can be used interchangeably.  A number of places only take cash, so you will need plenty on hand.  There’s an ATM at the Royal Bank of Canada, but they will charge you around an 8% transaction fee.  Our advice is to bring plenty of cash with you.

And that’s a wrap

We only had three full days on Harbour Island, and wish it had been a full week.  Maybe longer.  Next time . . .

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