I was pleased to see the
Miami
Herald carried an
interesting article on its front page about ancient crocodiles and other exotic
creatures in the early Bahamas. It has long been known that crocodiles existed
in the blue holes of the Bahamas but never has evidence of them been found in
such numbers.
About
thirty years ago, in the caves of Grand Bahama,
Spelionectes lucayensis, a previously unknown crustacean, that
looks like a swimming centipede was found. The small creature now forms a new
class of marine life.
Ponce
de Leon took note of the water-filled caverns in the Bahamas when he visited in
1513 and that is probably why he left two men on Grand Bahama Island to look
for the
Fountain of Youth. However when arrived back in Puerto Rico they
were so emaciated that it was clear to everybody they had failed to take years
off their age! Your readers might be
interested to know that the Lucayan Indians (the people that Columbus first met
when he came to the Bahamas) practiced a strange form of underwater burial and
evidence of this has been found in many of the same underwater blue hole caves
in the islands.
The
underwater caverns under the island of Grand Bahama incidentally, were once the
longest charted underwater cave system in the world. To read more
about the caves of the Bahamas your readers might like to refer to Rob Palmer’s
excellent book ‘
Blue Holes of The Bahamas’
. Also the
National
Geographic Magazine in 2010 included an excellent article on Bahamian blue
holes.
Peter Barratt
Incidentally it was exactly
500 years ago that Ponce de Leon visited the island. The historic event has
passed almost without comment on the island.
Peter Barratt is an architect/town planner who was formerly in charge of the
development of Freeport. He writes with first-hand knowledge of the Bahamas
having first visited the country in 1960. Because of his long experience in the
islands he has been able to record many interesting insights, observations and
historic moments that readers should find intriguing.
He has published several books
about the island nation:
Grand Bahama,
Freeport Notebook and
Bahama Saga,
(the latter a historical novel about the islands). He has also written a full
colour work entitled:
Angelic Verses
and two other works are near publication:
The
Port at War and
St Peter Was Never There.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his/her
private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of
TheBahamasWeekly.com
