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The chart and following text are from The Northern Bahamas Guide by Stephen J. Pavlidis
Bimini. The name conjures up many images, most notably big game fishing, rum running, and Ernest Hemingway. North Bimini is home to over a dozen big games fishing tournaments each year and boasts world class fishing just offshore in the deep blue waters of the Gulf Stream. Just south of South Bimini lies the wreck of the Sapona which brings to mind the rum running era during America’s prohibition years. The islands of North and South Bimini have hosted numerous colorful characters, rogues, and other celebrities over the years. The likes of Martin Luther King, Adam Clayton Powell, Gary Hart, Johnny Cash, and George Albert Lyon all strode the streets of Alice Town at one time or another but the most popular, bar none, was Ernest “Papa” Hemingway whose Islands In The Stream was inspired by the Biminis. Talk to any local who lived on Bimini during the Hemingway years, 1935-1937, and they will likely have a favorite “Papa” story to tell. Ernest Hemingway loved hard living, he thrived upon challenge and competition, it was no wonder he was a boxer. Hemingway once offered $50 to any Bahamian who could stay in the ring with him for three minutes but no one ever collected on the wager. Papa then offered $250 to anyone who could last three three-minute rounds with him using 6 oz. gloves. Now $250 was a lot of money in those days and Papa finally got a taker. His name was Willard Saunders, a muscular, 170 pound, bull-necked fisherman who is said to have been able to carry a piano balanced atop his unusually large skull. He approached Hemingway one day as Papa returned from fishing aboard his 38’ Pilar and Hemingway offered to go get the gloves. Saunders said no, he intended to take him on right then and there, on the dock, without gloves. Hemingway knocked him out in about a minute and a half but not before Saunders paralyzed the side of Papa’s face for half an hour with one punch. Hemingway and Saunders became friends and fought many times after that, not for money but for fun. Hemingway even built a ring to teach boxing to the youngsters of Bimini. His boxing and brawling exploits along the Bimini waterfront inspired songs such as Big Fat Slob In The Harbour (by Nathaniel Saunders) with lines like:
He call Mistah Hemingway a big fat slob. This song was inspired by a real life incident when Knapp, the once-publisher of McCall’s magazine, actually called Hemingway a “big, fat slob” and Hemingway punched him in the nose. North and South Bimini are situated at the northern end of a gently curving chain of small islands and cays stretching from North Bimini southward past South Cat Cay. These cays lie at the edge of the shallow waters of the Great Bahama Bank where the drop off to the deep water of the Straits of Florida offers fantastic fishing and diving opportunities. The island of North Bimini, and in particular the main settlement of Alice Town, is the traditional center of activity in this island chain. The island itself is a long thin strip of land approximately 7 miles long and only about 700 yards wide at its widest point. In the early days South Bimini was better suited to farming than North Bimini, but North Bimini with its reefs and immediate access to the Gulf Stream became a prime site for habitation. North Bimini was at one time a refuge for pirates and early settlers had to clear the harbour of pirate debris, hulls, muskets, cannons, and the like. It is said that Capt. Henry Morgan, after raiding Porto Bello, hurried to Bimini to bury some of his treasure. The waters of the Biminis were so rich in wrecks that wreckers from Grand Bahama moved to Bimini to take advantage of the sea’s bounty. Bimini’s five founding families settled the area in 1835 and were licensed to engage in wrecking. In later years Biminites lived off the sea in one form or another, either harvesting shells, conch, and fish, or using Bimini’s prime location off the eastern coast of the United States to run blockades during the Civil War and once again during the American Prohibition years. It has been said that the prohibition years actually “built” Bimini. “Pappy” Chalk set up a seaplane service to Bimini in 1919 that still operates today as the Pan Am Bridge. Visitors must take care not to anchor in the runway that begins just off the seaplane ramp in the harbour and stretches northeast towards the anchorage off Bimini Big Game.
If you are interested in the history of Bimini, you should pick up a copy of Ashley B. Saunders History of Bimini, available in Bimini. This is a wealth of information and some amazing old photos. |
