Andros Island
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Posted by Arthur Sigurssen in Travelling section |
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Andros Island usually confused with the Greek Island of Andros in Cyclades. Andros is the largest of all the Bahamas Islands (104 miles long and 40 miles wide) but it is mainly uninhabited. It has an abundance of bonefish and the world's third largest barrier reef which is over 140 miles long and is renowned for its superb diving sites and marine life. Andros a rare Bahamian wilderness teeming with opportunities for conservation has a population of 8,000 people although it is the fifth largest island in the Caribbean (2, 323 square miles.)
Lying 274km southeast of Miami and 48km west of Nassau, Andros is actually three major land areas: North Andros, Middle Andros, and South Andros. If The Bahamas still has an unexplored wilderness, this is it. Andros is one of the biggest unexplored tracts of land in the Western Hemisphere. Mostly flat, its 5,957 sq. km are riddled with lakes and creeks, and most of the local residents live along the shore. Its interior consists of a dense, tropical forest, really rugged bush, and mangrove country.
The marshy and relatively uninhabited west coast is called the “Mud,” and the east coast is paralleled for 193km by the third-largest underwater barrier reef in the world. The eastern margin of Andros is bordered by the Tongue of the Ocean, a 1,800 m deep abyss that separates Andros from New Providence. A fringing barrier reef runs for more than 230 km along the Tongue of the Ocean, making it one of the longest in the world. On all other sides, Andros is surrounded by the shallow waters of the Great Bahama Bank.
Andros Island History
The island was given the name “Espiritu Santo,” the Island of the Holy Spirit” by the Spanish, but is also called San Andreas on a 1782 map. The modern name is believed to be in honour of Sir Edmund Andros (1637-1714), Commander of Her Majesty’s Forces in Barbados in 1672 and Governor successively of New York, Massachusetts and New England.
It is also believed that the island could have been named after the inhabitants of St. Andro Island on the Mosquito Coast as 1,400 of them settled in Andros in 1787.
Loyalists and their slaves also settled in Andros in the late 19th Century. Cotton and sisal were grown and later sponging became a flourishing industry in Andros for many years.
It is even said to be the home of pirate Henry Morgan’s buried treasure and two mythical creatures Lusca and chickcharney some sort of leprechauns or gremlins.
The diverse topography which rises from these tropical waters is full of life, some of which can only be found on Andros. Over forty kinds of wild orchids, rare, endemic birds, wild boar, iguanas as long as four feet and a recently discovered tribal group all make their homes among the miles of deserted beaches, freshwater mud flats, thick brush, lush pine forests and inland waterways that make up this Atlantic oasis. Whether you are in search of magical discoveries, Andros is the island for adventurers and ecotourists alike—No tv, fax, phone or air-conditioning.
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