We found the Bahamas, and particularly the Exumas Land and Sea Park, to be beautiful beyond belief. The waters around the islands wear shades of spectacular colors depending on their depth and the sea bottom underneath. The islands themselves rise in stark contrast to the soft hues of the surrounding waters.
Before the British Loyalists moved to the islands to start plantations after the US Revolution in the late 1700's, the islands were forested with mature trees. The Loyalists cleared the trees to plant crops, but without the trees to hold the tenuous topsoil that had taken thousands of years to build up, the thin soil quickly eroded away leaving mostly rocky, exposed, limestone.
Today the islands, particularly the Exumas, are mostly rugged limestone, almost desert-like, or perhaps "moon-like", with jagged, sharp, ancient coral trails in one area and low sandy salt flats nearby. Slowly but surely more rugged varieties of bushes, trees and plants are coming back, but it will be thousands of years before sufficient topsoil exists to support forests as once existed here.
Come for a quick photo tour with us (new photos will be continuously added as we visit other islands) ...
