Royal Island Harbor was safe, but not much there. There was no beach.. just rock that surrounded the harbor. Also some halted construction of a resort with abandoned equipment, trailers, etc..so the feel was a little too industrial. After one night and knowing we needed to wait out about 5 days before our Abacos crossing, we decided to head an hour east to check out Spanish Wells.

Spanish Wells is one of the most unique settlements we have visited so far. It is 2 miles long and 1/2 mile wide and very inhabited. The people here are mostly caucasian, descendants of loyalists, Methodists and some English Puritans. The houses are so pretty and colorful, lawns well kept and a constant buzz of people traveling around on golf carts and small and mostly new cars. Except on Sunday when it was extremely quiet. There are a few mooring balls here and a very small marina. The economy here is clearly not dependent on cruisers. There are many large commercial type fishing vessels which harvest fish, lobster and conch for sale to much of the Bahamas. Oh, and no alcohol or bars (HUH??).

On our first day we caught a rare calm afternoon on the North side of the island and snorkeled beautiful, but still churned up, reefs. Friday evening we found ourselves with a good internet connection and streamed some live Jazz Fest and toasted to our friends there. Saturday included exploring the beautiful island by foot and doing some food shopping at the "Food Fair" ... the biggest grocery store we have seen yet. Then we did some produce shopping by picking fruit right from the trees on the island.. key limes, sopadilla's, tomatoes. Later we crossed over by dinghy to the tip of Eleuthera (about a 5 minute ride) for some adult beverages. On Sunday, with the winds too high for snorkeling, while taking turbo to the beach we saw tons of baby conch and realized there most be some big ones nearby. I jumped in the water and David pulled me behind the boat while I held on to a rope with my face in the water in a grassy/sandy area. I was laughing in my snorkel at what we must look like. We had success and found us a large conch to bring back to the boat. While doing this I came across schools of large snapper and neither of us had any luck at spearing. A rubber finally popped on the pole spear. An area fishing guide told us it was spawning season and we could probably catch some off the back of the boat.. no luck with that either. Sunday afternoon we kicked back and enjoyed some Fresh Conch Salad w/Peas and Rice (Jolie Style) and some more live Jazz Fest. Monday David went in to town and came back with all kinds of good fishing gear including a new "Hawain Sling" type spear pole, a new rubber for the old one, and some new lures, line, weights etc in preparation for all of the fish we would catch on our crossing. Then we mostly lazed around and read.. we were ready to move on.