Three hundred and fifty years ago a small band of English pilgrims left Bermuda seeking religious freedom landed on this Island,  and gave it the ethereal name: Eleuthera which means “freedom” in Greek. The name seems to be as apt today as it was then.  Eleuthera delivers in its initial promise by bestowing its gifts upon the lucky who’ve stumbled up on it, or the smart who know where to go.

One hundred and ten miles long and averaging two to three miles wide (eight miles in places whilst down to the width of a road at Glass Window Bridge) it has 10,000 plus inhabitants scattered amongst some eighteen settlements linked by a single highway running from North to South and deferentially called the Queens Highway.  To the north it shelters Spanish Wells one of the original and now fully modernized Bahamian fishing cays, and the Celebrity’s get away cay of Harbour Island. 

Miles of glistening pink and white sand beaches, colourful settlements with friendly faces, and echoes of rolling acres of pineapple plantations and farmland all make Eleuthera an island of the most casual sophistication.  The cool laziness of Eleutheran life and warm sun-drenched colors of the island give it the feel of a giant illusion; it seems to have a kind of unbounded air of calm and grace.

Eleuthera is not really the sort of place that lends itself to plans but there is so much to explore.  At the southern most tip of Eleuthera, reached by a four gear friendly track is one of the finest beaches in the world – Lighthouse beach, sandwiched between the Atlantic and the Bahamian waters is named after an Old Admiralty Lighthouse from which you can gaze over azure seas, beaches and coral reefs and just never want to leave.  In the North, and in sharp contrast is Preacher’s Cave, a subterranean cave in which the Eleutheran adventurers, the pilgrims who first landed here, took refuge.  It is not the only magnificent cave on the island and there is one at Hatchet Bay which is a mile long.  These caves have yielded up many treasures, if not that left by the great Pirates of the Caribbean, and archeologists are still finding remains of the early pilgrims and more excitingly Lucayan Indians.  These early inhabitants came from the Americas and lived on the island until killed off by the Spanish who took them as slaves following Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Bahamas and Caribbean.

Glass Window Bridge is a magnificent sight, which spans a gap in which the turbulent waters of the Atlantic meet the calmer seas of the Exuma Sound on the island’s leeward side.  The current “battered” bridge has replaced a naturally formed bridge that was blown away during a hurricane years ago, but the view of the deep blue ocean crashing surf is still as spectacular as when it captured the painterly eye of Winslow Homer. 

Ocean Holes, sea water wells connected to the open sea, cover the length of the island. The best known of these is in Rock Sound.  It is extremely large, of indeterminate depth and provides the visitor with close ups of countless fish which owe their continued survival to the bad luck that ‘evidently’ befalls those who snare them. Those who wish to fish however are spoilt for choice, with the lagoon at Savannah Sound providing an idyllic setting for Bone Fishing…….. while competing Sea Eagles provide Birdwatchers with the fullest of feathered dossiers.

Surfer’s beach near Gregory Town is a gem for those inclined, with Atlantic rollers given a free pass through the maze of reefs that shelter other beaches on the Atlantic side. 

The settlements of James Cistern, Bannerman Town, John Millers, Deep Creek ………… are yet more names steeped in Bahamian folklore…..and if ever there was an island whose name lives up to its expectation, Eleuthera is it; a Treasure Island, where freedom is everything.