Black Point – Part 2

As promised, here’s the second part in my two part series about our stay in Black Point, where we happened to be anchored over the Easter holiday this year. We watched this sleepy little town double in population as relatives headed back home to celebrate with their families. On Saturday there were games for the little ones, food and drink for sale all day long, a rivalry basketball game, a parade, dancing girls and a party that went into the wee hours of Sunday morning. Easter, on the other hand, was very quiet. We did see some lovely ladies dressed up in their Sunday best, but I think a lot of the younger crowd slept through the Easter services, and maybe most of the day as well!

We spent Easter Saturday doing some chores, snorkeling and exploring before heading to Scorpio’s to hang out with cruising friends. Here, we waited for the traditional day before Easter rivalry basketball game between Black Point and Staniel Cay to start. We’d heard this would be around 6pm, but weren’t surprised when it didn’t actually begin until around 8ish. Island time is real! Very fun to watch – a very physical game which Black Point ended up winning by one point with a basket in the final second!

Here’s a quick little video of some of the fun the little kids were having, as well as some footage from the big basketball game!

Now it was time for the “parade” to start. I use the term parade lightly because it consisted of a pickup truck with a DJ set up in the bed blaring music, kids dancing on all sides of the truck and about six women wearing corsets, tutus and carnival masks who followed behind and danced. Shortest parade I’ve ever witnessed, but boy was everyone having a great time! The truck then pulled onto the basketball court where four women in costume did a choreographed dance performance, some of which included playing with, swallowing and breathing fire. Looked just a wee bit dangerous to me…

This part of the festivities ended around 11pm, so we headed back to the boat, grabbed a snack, and around midnight went back to shore to check out the party at Regatta Point, at which time we were told that it wouldn’t really get going until 1 or 2am! There was a DJ playing VERY loud Bahamian music, and a woman (apparently a Bahamian celebrity of sorts) did a short live performance while we were there, but there really weren’t all that many people around, and we were definitely the only cruisers there (and most likely the oldest folks there as well!). We finally left around 1:30am, just as lots of people were arriving, so it seemed that the party was indeed just getting started!

A few days prior to the Easter festivities, there was a full moon, and in the islands, a full moon means a full moon party! This was a much more laid back party than the Easter parties thrown by the Black Point folks though…a bunch of us cruisers all dinghied in with some snacks and beverages and took over a deck belonging to some rental units for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, it was dreary and cloudy out, so not even a glimpse of the moon we were celebrating!

And now, just to give you a better feel for what Black Point is like, I leave you with the following photos of some of their colorful buildings.