Bahama Tales - New Bight

New Bight (or The Bight, as it is commonly called) was kind of like the "capital" of Cat Island, at least for our end of it. That's where the constable had his office. He was the police, the judge, and whatever other legal person you needed.

Mister Ambrister's store was my first experience with an old-fashioned general store. The little building was stuffed from corner to corner with cans and boxes and fresh produce and anything else you might want. He would give us a piece of candy whenever we stopped in.



In New Bight, there is a monastery, named the Hermitage. Its artistic, but abandoned, buildings stand on the peak of the highest point of Cat Island, Mount Alvernia. (206 feet) It was built by an Anglican priest Monsignor Jerome Hawkes. It is told that he would ring a bell each day, and one day, it was silent. The villagers climbed the hill to find him very ill. He was taken to Nassau, where he died, then returned to be buried and sealed in a cave.



There used to be an old dock at the Bight that frightened me. It was so old that many of the boards were loose or missing. You could look right down to the water. I had a dream once of being on that dock and watching a man catching a big fish. I dreamed that my little brother fell through the missing boards and I was holding his hand. He slipped from my fingers and fell into the water and was eaten by the fish. When I woke (crying) my father had to show me that my little brother was sound asleep in bed. (It's strange how I can still "see" and "feel" the horror of that dream.)

From browsing through pictures on the internet, I can see that The Bight has grown a lot in the last 40 years. There are resorts and hotels and many tourist attractions there on Fernandez Bay. One part of me would like to go back and see my old home. The other part of me would rather just remember it.