Driving around North/Central Andros

Today we rented a car and did some driving/touring.  Andros is one of the only Bahamian islands that has enough of the right kind of soil to grow pine trees.  It is sparsely populated, so most of the drive looked like this.

There are hundreds of blue holes - and they have a nice National Park area.   (Not well marked, but we managed to find it).

Walked a nice path to a huge blue hole.  Very pretty - too big for me to get a photo of the entire circular pond.

Sortof hard to make out, but the trail took us thru terrain that was dotted frequently by these small holes in the limestone - glad the trail was well defined.  These eroded holes trap fallen leaves and  are usually have a banana plant or something growing from them.  Some are just a few feet deep, others are 20' deep.

Passed many pretty seaside views.  We'll be down this way via our boats in the next few weeks but it's nice to see it from inland for a change.

I don't normally comment on the poor conditions of structures, but I thought I'd share just a bit.  This island is not particularly wealthy....

Obviously, hurricanes and climate take it's toll, but the living conditions hear for most folks is not what you might be used to.  There doesn't appear to be much, if any, "resort" type homes that you often see interspersed on Bahamian islands.  Not saying that's a bad thing.

We found the Androsia batik fabric factory - again, not well marked!!  If you're not familiar, it's a process of dying fabric  by first painting or stamping wax of the undyed fabric, applying the dye, then melting the wax away to leave a beautiful imprint.

Unfortunately since it was New Year's Eve, the factory itself was shut down so we didn't get a tour.  The store was open and it was cool to see the neat designs.

 The last thing we had time for before dark was to stop at the Mennonite farm for veggies.  It's a farm run by a  group of Mennonites from Pennsylvania that came to the island years ago. 

Again, not well marked.  They told us to "look for the bible verses on the side of the road".  Sure enough, there was a small sign with a religious saying (not a bible verse but something like - Repent before you meet your maker" but I forgot to take a photo)....

They had coconut trees started in pots.  (I assume these were for sale but didn't ask since I certainly couldn't use one, haha)

There veggies were extremely fresh - I just got several pounds of tomatoes and a couple of heads of cabbage.  (We have taken to using cabbage as the "crunchy" part of sandwiches since it lasts so much longer here than lettuce).

Back to the boat we had dinner and played Mexican Train dominoes with Ralph and Leslie.  Good fun!!  At "cruiser's midnight" - 9PM - we got out the bubbly and toasted the New Year!!