Clifton National Park

On the other side of opulence is Jaws Beach (no sharks so not sure of the name) which is part of the Clifton National Park.  It is not a NP like you might experience in the states but it does protect some archaeological  sites from development so we were happy to support their efforts.  Jaws beach was hard hit like the rest of the area by Matthew so the restrooms are not working but there were benches to sit on and a huge dumpster for trash.  For a cruiser in the Bahamas this is a real perk.  You try not to produce a lot of trash but it happens and there are not a lot of places to store the bags so dumpsters alone are worth the price of admission. But wait, there's more! We went with our friends from the other three boats so we made quite the invasion force.
The park encompasses the entire end of that side of  the bay.  They have found evidence of an ancient Lucayan village.  These were the "Indians" that greeted Columbus.  They lived off of the products of the ocean and grew crops.  Their site was protected and not available to us.  We did see a lot of ruins from early white settlers.  To think that some of them were from the 18th century was amazing.  On the far side of the point, there was a vast plantation with the ruins of the great house and slave quarters.  We did not realize there was an admission fee since we entered the area on the beach side and walked around the end of the point and up the other side.  We were close to the entrance before we had people questioning our lack of green entry bands.  When we made it to the official entry we paid up and proudly displayed our bands.

This is the sign you see from the road.  We didn't walk on the road until
we were almost back to the beach and our dingys.

This is the symbol for the park showing the three races who have occupied this bit of land.

Not a great picture but you can get an idea of the scope of the park.

Our invasion crew.  This is Gail and Don from Island Tyme and Brenda and Mike
from Wrinkles.  Brenda broke her arm on the way to Bimini but has maintained
a really positive attitude.  Great people to meet and cruise with for at least a while. They head
for the Exumas next month while we're headed to the Abacos.

This is Jim from Amata Marie. His wife, Nancy, was taking pictures and I could
not get one of her.  They are headed for a 3 year tour of the Caribbean.

One of the unusual finds was this giant rope. David and Gail give a bit
of perspective on how huge it was.  The eye splice David is holding up
must have taken a master splicer for sure. 

Our path to adventures ahead.

We saw a few half finished structures that must be new since Matthew.
We had all packed picnic lunches so this was our stopping spot since it had
benches.

A huge wave came in to this area and washed away all the trees and brought
in a lot from the sea.  Those dots at the back of the picture were at least
200 yards up from the beach

This huge buoy was that red dot in the previous picture. That took
a tremendously powerful wave to get it up that far.

This is a cleverly disguised cell tower.  The fronds look like the took
a real beating from the storm but we were impressed that it was
even standing.

At the edge of the park boundary is the power plant for the island.  This fuel
tank must have experience a catastrophic fire.