After a slow overnight passage from Johnson Cay in the Ragged Islands and a distance of around 80 miles, we decided to put in to Little Harbour on the east coast of Long Island as we knew we would not make Rum Cay in daylight.

We had previously visited this area by car on our first visit to Long Island, together with Paul & Leanne from Otra Mundo.

Little Harbour offers excellent weather protection and is used by Long Island fishermen to anchor their boats during heavy weather. However, there are no services there and access to the main road of Long Island is a long walk.

On hearing about a heavy northern swell that would be running for the next few days, we weighed anchor the next day to go 10 miles further north to Clarence Town, the main town of Long Island. Again, we were battling into strong headwinds and the beginnings of the northern swell. The 10 miles took us 4 hours of tacking.

Clarence Town harbour is much nicer than we had originally thought on our driving tour. There are some smaller islands in the harbour, some great beaches and a very large blue hole. We anchored off a lovely sandy beach, facing north east towards the Atlantic and were able to watch the very large rollers entering the main northern entrance to the harbour and look out forward to see the rollers breaking into high plumes of spray against the reefs and rocks between us and the Atlantic.

This re-visit to Clarence Town gave us time to go up one of the towers of St. Peter Paul Catholic church located on the hill above Clarence Town with a fabulous view over the town and harbour.

Just outside Clarence Town on the main Queen's Highway north is the Oasis Bakery. A very inviting sight awaits the visitor to this shop. Apple pies, rum cakes, bread pudding, coconut pies and many more. We walked to the bakery, situated overlooking one of the inland salt ponds, bought our bakery supplies then were offered a lift in the back of a pick up truck on the way back to the harbour.

We are glad that weather forced us to make this re-visit to Long Island and enjoyed our time at Clarence Town.

Father Jerome:

Most visitors to Long Island and Cat Island have heard of John Cecil Hawes, known as Father Jerome. He built a number of churches on Long Island and Cat Island, the Hermitage on Cat Island and planned the building of St. Augustine's Monastery in Nassau.

Born in England in 1876, he first became an architect then an Anglican priest. After the 1908 hurricane devastated parts of The Bahamas, the Anglican Bishop sent his priest/architect to restore the damaged churches. His unique stamp of hurricane proof stonework can be seen all over Long Island.

After an interim elsewhere, including Australia as a wagon train driver, bush priest, monk and missionary, he became a Catholic priest and returned to The Bahamas to build Catholic churches and the monastery in Nassau.

As you will read and see in our report and photos on our visit to Cat Island, Father Jerome built The Hermitage on Mount Alvernia for his retirement.