Living in The Bahamas- Drug Runner Island

LIVING IN THE BAHAMAS – DRUG RUNNER’S ISLAND

Stephanie called me one winter day of 2005. “Hi, Dad. How are the islands?”
“Warm and sunny. It’s so wonderful to hear your voice, Steph. I haven’t seen you this year. How’s Atlanta?”
“It's cold up here, and I’m burned out from mid-terms. I sure miss you. Spring Break is next month, so I want to escape to Nassau and work on my tan.”
“Great. Fly in and chill for a week with us. I found fantastic islands that we can explore.”
“Oh, I can’t wait. Thanks a lot, Dad.”
“I’ll set it up. See you soon.”

A few weeks later, Annie and I waited for Stephanie outside Pindling Airport.
“What’s taking her so long?” Annie asked. “She landed an hour ago.”
“I’m sure she’s hung up in Immigration where Spring Breakers overwhelm the system. You know Bahamians don’t hurry.”
“Look, there she is.” We jumped out of our car to give her big hugs.
“It’s great to see you, Stephanie,” I said. “We miss you a lot.”
“I miss you too, Dad. I’m so glad to be here.”
“Hey Steph, welcome to Nassau, the land of sunshine,” Annie said.
“That’s what I need. A tropic tan with no books for a week.”
We loaded her bags, then drove to our house along a winding road next to a shoreline of turquoise water bordered by white sand.
“Wow, that water is gorgeous,” Stephanie said. “A lot bluer than the Keys.”
“Isn’t the ocean spectacular?” Annie replied. “We look at it every day.”
“I hope you’re not too tired from your trip,” I said. “We have a special party planned tonight. Did you bring a good dress as I asked?”
“Yes, I did. What’s this secret you’ve been hinting at?”
“Remember I told you about Junkanoo?”
“That big street party at Christmas?”
“Right. We have reservations for Junkanoo Awards Ceremonies tonight. The Prime Minister will be there.” This social function in Nassau brought society's elite together for a high-class party.
“Cool. How did you swing that?”
“A Junkanoo club is called a shack. Lyle Chase at my office is in the Valley Boys, a winning shack. He comped our tickets."

That night we attended ceremonies in the Crystal Ballroom adjacent to the Crystal Palace Casino. A rainbow of tables with vibrant Junkanoo colored decorations displayed artwork with ornate costumes from past and present. Pulsating dancers crowded a dance floor in front of a reggae band. Annie’s elegant, leopard-patterned dress dripped with jewelry, drawing many looks to our table near the stage.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Stephanie said.
“I bet you haven’t. Life is different in The Bahamas.”
“I think there are no other Americans in this room.”
“Feels different, doesn’t it?”
“The shoe is on the other foot.”
“Right. That’s okay. Like anywhere else, some people are good and some bad. Out here in the tourist section of town, we are pretty much invisible to Bahamians. Let's go to the food line."
Splendid, multicolored ice sculptures of mermaids, waves, and fish in reefs adorned buffet tables covered with large platters of jerked chicken, grouper, Mac and cheese, with peas and rice. Multitudes of flavorful chocolate cakes and guava duff pies on a desert table ensured no one went home hungry.
“I don’t know what most of this is, Dad,” Stephanie said.
“It’s all good. You’re here to splurge this week.”
She laughed. “It’s better than dorm food.”
We piled our plates high with exotic food.
While eating the exotic food, we noticed a disturbance at a backdoor. All eyes turned as three men walked across the room without fanfare to sit at a table next to us with three government Ministers. The audience buzzed with excitement, slapping their tables in unison. Soon the hall vibrated with a loud drumbeat of pounded tables.
“Who is that?” Stephanie asked in amazement.
“Prime Minister Perry Christie,” Annie replied with a big smile.
Stephanie stared wide-eyed.
When he stood up and waved to the crowd, they broke into thunderous clapping and cheering. With a show of modesty, he motioned with his hands to quiet down.
“He has just two bodyguards,” I pointed out. “Security’s not a problem in Nassau.”

I had watched government security procedures during my course of work on a project where I attempted to acquire land for a new canal. The government’s real estate acquisition officer and the Prime Minister, known as the PM, occupied the top floor of a bank building on West Bay Street. I had been at that bank several times with real estate business and noticed the PM’s unattended limousine. When I had walked around it and looked inside, no one bothered me. Not in a million years would I get near any government limo in the States. When guards at the bank entrance saw my Ministry shirt, they waved me through the front door. I had proceeded up an elevator to the PM’s office. After informing a receptionist I was there on business, she told me to walk past the PM’s office to the real estate office. I took a quick look at the PM talking on his phone as I walked past, astounded at a complete lack of security for him.

Though politicians in The Bahamas bickered like cats and dogs, it was all talk. Bahamians represented no physical threat to justify heavy security like in the States. Bahamian blood did not carry violence. While living two years in Nassau, I saw no evidence of radical groups or terrorist threats, even after 9-11.

After eating, Annie and I joined the dancers. Many eyes about the room watched us add a different American style of holding each other and spinning on their dance floor. I watched with interest as partiers, some quite inebriated, walked to the PM's table to pay homage. They attracted little interest from his bodyguards. He even danced with a few lucky ladies. After dinner, multitudes of trophies glittering with ornate, colored shapes resembling bright Junkanoo costumes were awarded to winning shacks. PM Christie gave a rousing speech about Junkanoo tradition, then handed out more awards. We left that night appreciative of our new country’s culture and friendliness.

Two days later, we loaded Boat Tales for a forty-mile run eastward through shallow water to the Exumas, a 150-mile-long chain of 365 small, sparsely inhabited islands aligned north to south. These shallow flats keep the sea calm and traversable almost year-round. The Exumas clear, turquoise waters with clean white beaches are the most beautiful in The Bahamas, if not the world. I made the run through azure water glittering like multitudes of elusive diamonds. A sharp contrast lay one mile off the eastern shore of the Exumas where an abrupt 6,000-foot wall dropped into Exuma Sound. Large Atlantic swells pushed by prevailing southeast winds from Africa crashed into this wall to create year-round tempestuous water. Amateur boaters bode well to stay away from Exuma Sound.
We stopped first at Highborne Cay, Exuma, home to a small marina protected from east winds by the island’s high center ridge. When we drove into the marina, I pointed to a dark blue and creme 143-foot yacht with multitudes of antennas and radar domes on its roof.
"Look, there's Octopussy,” I said.
“What?” Annie exclaimed.
“Remember that James Bond movie, Octopussy? They named this boat after that movie. It stays over here much of the year.”
“Wow, the glass dining room on its transom is gorgeous,” Stephanie said, inspecting the luxurious vessel. She appreciated a fine boat when she saw one.
“It has a jet drive that makes fifty-three knots. She’s one of a kind.”
Annie noticed a fish-cleaning table on a pier.
“Is this where you cleaned your fifty-five-pound dolphin last spring?” she asked.
“Yes. There’s no other place to clean fish for fifty miles.”
“I’m glad you didn’t clean it at our house.”
“You should see the fishing boats stacked up here when dolphins are running in the spring. The dock is piled high with large fish, and the cleaning line is hours long.”
“What are those big black fish under the dock?” Stephanie asked.
“That school of nurse sharks waits to find food. They know table scraps are an easy meal. They’re so docile, I hear native boys jump in to ride them.”
Annie squawked.
Stephanie said, “No way.”
“Way. Anything can happen in Jimmy’s magic harbours.”
“Harbour number five?” Annie asked.
“Number five,” I replied with a nod and grin.

From Highborne Cay, we made a two-mile run north to Allan’s Cay, where three small islands formed a circle. I carefully negotiated through a narrow cut in a sand bar to enter a protected lagoon. Inside were twenty sailboats anchored in shallow, aqua water over a white, smooth bottom that looked like a blank canvas.
“This is so cool. Those sailboats are hiding out from my world,” Stephanie said.
“Annie, this is harbour number six,” I announced.
She nodded in agreement. "And another world-class beach."
“Some of those boats have been here for months,” I explained. “This lagoon is a true escape from the world for those that can afford it. They take a dinghy into Highborne Marina for supplies, fish for food, come back, and chill every day.”
Annie looked disdainful. “Sounds too close and personal for me. I’d get cabin fever after three days.”
“Me too,” I said. “I like a powerboat and hotel. Let’s go ashore. Stephanie, bring grapes from my ice chest. I want to introduce you to a creature you have not seen before.”

After making sure a high tide would not strand our boat, I pulled onto a bleached white beach of a quarter-mile long island. We climbed off the boat’s dive platform and waded ashore. As soon as we walked onto the beach, a fierce-looking, three-foot-long, brown iguana lizard rushed out of bushes in an apparent attack. Annie and Stephanie screamed, backpedaling into the water.
I laughed. "Don't worry mon. He won't hurt you; he's just a hungry iguana."
Six more scaled monsters with vicious claws and green eyes hard as emeralds scurried across the beach to encircle us. Tails whipped back and forth as their tongues flicked to gather smells.
“Watch this.” When I threw a grape to the largest lizard, his forked tongue lashed out to catch an appetizer. My ladies squealed with delight, then joined the game of throwing grapes to hungry reptiles.
“No other island in The Bahamas has iguanas,” I said. “They may have escaped off a boat long ago. See that sign posted over there? This island is a protected sanctuary.”
“Do I need to worry about snakes?” Stephanie asked.
“There’re no snakes in The Bahamas, but you do need to watch out for rats. They’re everywhere.”
We walked along the gorgeous beach of fine-grained sand to a cove with twelve dinghies beached for a party. Hungry iguanas looking for handouts surrounded the dingy people. We joined the group and talked with a jovial couple.
“Hi, I’m Gordon England. This is my wife Annie and daughter Stephanie.”
We shook hands. "I'm Steve Molnar, and this is Blossom. It's nice to meet you. I see you've met our pets."
I laughed, asking, “Where’re you from?”
“We sailed all the way from Huron, Ohio,” Blossom replied. “We navigated through the Erie Canal, then sailed down the Atlantic seaboard to Palm Beach, where we crossed over to West End in Grand Bahama. What about you?”
“We live in Nassau. I have a job there, so we explore the Exumas often.”
“How long have you been in Nassau?”
“About two years now.”
“What about you? How long have you been in The Bahamas?”
“We sailed over to the Abacos in October on our 42-foot Hunter, the Presto. We island hopped all winter long, holing up in hidden harbours. We’ll go home before hurricane season.”
“You guys have it made,” Stephanie said. “No phones, no TV, no computer. The heck with the rest of the crazies of our world. I wish I didn’t have to go back to school.”
Annie laughed. “You wouldn’t last long without your boyfriend.”
She paused. “I could last a while.”
“The Bahamian boys would be all over you.” I grinned.
“No way, Dad.”

When our grapes ran out, we explored more islands further south as we wove among scattered coral heads and spectacular deserted beaches in our boat. Twelve miles later, I negotiated cuts through sandy shoals to circle around the southern tip of Normans Cay. I pulled onto an isolated, one-hundred-foot-long islet with a single coconut tree swaying on a mound in the center.
“It’s lunchtime on Aaron's Cay,” I announced. “Time to chill.”
“Wonderful, our own island,” Stephanie exclaimed.
“Another perfect beach,” Annie said. “No trash, no seaweed, just pure, soft whiteness. I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
We took beach chairs and ice chests ashore while Annie served beer and lunch. We spread suntan lotion on each other, then laid out, the girls in swimsuits and me with an Explorer’s hat and long clothes to keep sun off my skin. A whisper of gentle wavelets brushed in and out, soothing our feet. I drifted into blissful emptiness, far away from bustling society. The slow pace of island life had slowed me down, providing therapy that caused my migraines to subside the last few months.
I awoke an hour later to watch the two most important ladies of my life bake to a golden brown. Annie looked so contented sleeping with a sunhat over her face. To my relief, her nightmares had stopped, returning her to a normal, happy mermaid.
For years she had dreamed of a garden but could not have one at our Florida condo. Since Kingsley had provided her with topsoil and flowers, we now had a lush, colorful tapestry inside the walls of our compound. Dressed in a bathing suit and blasting Neil Diamond on her stereo, Annie spent hours every day planting tomatoes, spinach, spices, and flowers in her garden surrounding our compound. She watered her plants and cooked meals with fresh vegetables. I helped by digging up small trees and Spanish daggers alongside roads. I planted them inside and outside the compound walls to keep burglars away. She had dreamed of this retirement for a long time. Now her dream was achieved.
Stephanie also forgot about her world this day. Arduous study had given her high grades in chemical engineering at prestigious Georgia Tech. She had a diving scholarship and had set school records performing death-defying twists and turns off a ten-meter platform. Last week she placed third at her Conference championships. She also earned an Academic All American award. Stephanie deserved this well-earned respite.

I let my mermaids sleep a while longer, then woke them up.
“Dad, can’t we just stay here all afternoon?”
"It's time to go diving. There’s a special place around the corner where we can snorkel in a plane.”
She smiled. “Great. I am in a pool every day, but it’s nothing compared to this. I might not want to leave.”
Annie laughed. “She’s already got sand in her toes after two days. I’ve got it bad, too. We may never leave.”
“For real?” Stephanie looked concerned.
“My contract lasts three years,” I said. “After that, we want to move into that house we’re building on Lubbers Quarters. I go there every couple of months to inspect construction progress.”
“Is that what you want, to stay here in The Bahamas? You’re so far away from me, Dad. I seldom see you as it is.”
“Who knows what’ll happen. I am already 24 months into it. While life is a step down from the States, it is easier and slower, keeping my blood pressure down. I often go to Masonic Lodge meetings. Annie attends American Women’s Club meetings and Ambassador parties. Our biggest excitement is hurricanes. We can’t evacuate, so we put up our shutters and ride it out with a hurricane party.”
“I found him a new fishing buddy too,” Annie said.
“Oh yeah, who?” Stephanie asked.
“Doctor Greg Neil. He is the best Plastic Surgeon in The Bahamas, specializing in cosmetic surgery and hand reconstruction with microsurgery for nerve repair. He is a fanatic deep-sea fisherman like me, with all the fishing toys on his boat. We catch dolphins and tuna all the time."
“I’m glad you have a new friend.” She didn’t like this line of conversation, so she changed the subject. “What’s this Normans Cay you’ve been talking about?”
“Did you see the movie Blow, with Johnnie Depp?”
“Oh yeah, that came out a few years ago.”
“Yes, a true story of the smuggler, George Jung. Remember when he went to the drug lord’s island in The Bahamas?”
“This is it?”
“That one over there.” I pointed across the bay. “His boss, Carlos Lehder, lived there. He became a notorious member of the Columbian drug cartel in the 1980s. They say that eighty percent of all cocaine entering the United States came through that island. He paid off the government to have airplanes land day and night on his private airstrip. One of his C-46 planes missed the runway one night, ending up in shallow water offshore. Most plane wrecks are in deep water, so this wreck is a special treat for snorkelers. Let’s go check it out.”
I drove Boat Tales across gin-clear water to the submerged airplane and tossed an anchor. While just its tail projected above the surface now at high tide, during low tide a foot of rusted body rose into the air. We looked with amazement at the remainder of the rusted-out plane so close to us underwater. We donned snorkels to explore an amazing dive site. Annie patrolled above, watching for sharks while Stephanie and I swam through a hole in the fuselage to where red snappers and lobsters hid in cabin debris. We sat in submerged cockpit chairs, trying to imagine the last terrified moments of desperate pilots who died when they aborted a landing after spotting DEA agents on the runway. We dove again, posing for pictures, holding onto coral-encrusted propellers. When we swam under a wing, Stephanie pointed to a lobster watching us from inside an engine.

I retrieved a bag of frozen peas from my ice chest. When I opened it and squeezed out a dozen peas, hundreds of small sergeant-majors and yellow grunts swarmed around me, fighting for food in a whirlwind dance. The aggressive fish, pecking at my arms and legs with small intimidating teeth too small to break my skin. I laughed through my snorkel, inhaled water, and returned to the surface, choking and spitting.
Stephanie swam to the bottom of the plane, turned on her back and slipped under a wheel, acting like she’d been run over. When I emptied the last of the peas under Annie, fish swarmed around her, pecking on her body. She screamed, retreating to the boat’s cabin to hyperventilate. When Stephanie and I finished exploring the plane, we returned to Boat Tales. I looked across the islands, wondering how many other drug runners had met watery graves in the Caribbean.

“I’ve been saving the best for last,” I announced. “Now we’re going to a ghost town.”
They smiled with anticipation as we lifted anchor to motor across Normans Cay Harbour to an old dock stretching hundreds of feet along the island’s eastern shoreline.
“That’s a big dock,” Annie noted.
“This became a major staging point for their drug runs,” I said. “See that timber? Those 4 x 12 are the thickest lumber I’ve ever seen. That pier’s wide enough to drive heavy trucks on to load coke onto go-fast boats running into Miami. Remember Miami Vice and Scarface? This island boomed during those times, but it’s almost deserted now.”
“No telling what we will find,” Annie said with anticipation.
We tied lines to the dock and wandered up a gravel road through an abandoned marina. Stephanie walked in silence, exposed to a smuggling location and its implications for her first time. Atop a hill, we found remnants of a yacht club overlooking a harbour full of malevolent stories. A once well-built concrete building had been thoroughly vandalized. All that remained were broken windows, collapsed ceiling, and plumbing stripped out of crumbling sheetrock. Graffiti covered the walls. Names and vulgarity from past smugglers were carved into a wooden bar. We stood amidst crumbling rubble, imagining wild smugglers holed up on this island hideaway where legendary orgies went on for days at a time with unlimited drugs and alcohol.
I related, “Lehder became a megalomaniac plotting to overthrow the Columbian government. He spent $4,500,000 on this island, running off other residents and then building his smuggling hideout. He built a hundred homes with a landing strip for his private fiefdom. Armed guards with attack dogs patrolled these beaches to keep unwanted boaters away from his playground.”
“This place feels spooky,” Stephanie replied.
Annie nodded with hesitation. “Yes, I have felt evil spirits ever since we stepped ashore.”
Further inland, we came upon a ravaged mansion, just as wrecked as the yacht club. We explored the eerie house in silence, hoping not to disturb the ghosts we felt around us. Behind the house were remnants of cages for tigers kept for entertainment. We followed a rocky trail across the island to a deserted runway with three small, parked planes. A helicopter surprised us when it swooped low to land on the runway. A bearded, brown man with shorts and no shirt scurried from dense brush, boarded the chopper, and flew away. I watched, imagining airplanes full of cocaine arriving from Columbia, then leaving for secret rendezvous’ in Florida.
“What happened to Lehder?” Stephanie asked.
“Our DEA pressured the Bahamian government to deal with him in 1983. They had no choice but to close him down, causing a scandal that brought down Prime Minister Pindling. Lehder’s now in a secret American prison where he negotiated a fifty-five-year sentence in exchange for information that led to Manuel Noriega’s capture in Panama for drug smuggling.”

Like most criminals, those wild smugglers had no future, leaving death and ruin behind them on a forgotten island. We returned in silence across the haunted cay to the pier, where we crept in silence to Boat Tales. I fired up the engine and steered a course back to Nassau. My expected excitement of exploring a famous pirate hideout had instead left me with a sinister revelation into depths of human depravity.

Stephanie looked back at the spectacular bay, then asked, “Is this a Particular Harbour?”
“You’re getting the hang of it. It is creepy but still spectacular. This will be number seven. Each one’s different, with its own stories. I doubt you will see three in one day again.”
“I’ll always remember this day, Dad. Thanks so much.”