Cruising World – August 2019

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dodging and feinting and grinding, pulsing

within their huge birdlike costumes.

The parade moved forward slowly,

the dancers feverish, sweating to an

arterial rhythm, the dancing hard and

fast in the heat as they pushed like a

wave through the crowd. Then came the

men, bare-chested and muscled, engines

driving the dancers, pouring sweat,

blowing horns and hitting cowbells and

pounding the 55-gallon drums stretched

with goat hide.

The parade circled the town, gathering

a line of novice dancers in its wake, locals

and visitors alike, and slowly, as the sun

began to sink over Abaco, the music too

faded away, and the crowds filtered out.

The Bolo ferryboats shuttled groups

home. Cruisers made their way back

to their anchored boats. Drums and

horns and costumes were left roadside as

dancers and musicians relaxed. Groups sat

on curbs in the shade, sipping beers and

cooling off as the sun set, the island again

becoming what it would be for another

364 days: a sleepy-feeling town on the

northern fringes of the Bahamas.

—Jon Keller

The pre-dawn drumming comes as
the start of Junkanoo day, a traditional
element witnessed by few tourists; I just
happen to be an early riser. The main
event wouldn’t start until afternoon. Even
so, by midmorning, New Plymouth began
to come alive.
Sport-fishers and sailboats and out-
boards circled and anchored. The town
dinghy docks clogged. In the inner harbor,
a line snaked around Eddie Rock’s conch
hut, where a heap of glistening conch
shells grew by the minute, two guys in
the small hut cleaning and chopping and
pounding conch, mixing island salads.
New Plymouth’s narrow concrete
streets—half-storybook and half-
colonial—were lined with tourists and
locals by noon. The sun beat down hard.
Tents and awnings held apron-clad
women who scooped heaps of food from
hotel pans covered in tinfoil: peas and
rice, barbecued or fried chicken, macaroni
and cheese, coleslaw, beans, potato salad,
pork ribs. People lined up for daiquiris
and Kalik beer and bottles of water from
coolers of ice. Near the basketball courts,
a conspicuous line hung outside Miss
Emily’s Blue Bee Bar, reputed home of
the infamous Goombay Smash, a rum
punch mixed in 5-gallon buckets. It can be
bought by the gallon or pint—and as with
a martini, the saying goes that one’s not
enough, and two’s too many.
As parade time neared, people gathered
at the intersection in front of the old jail.
The cemetery’s stucco wall ran along one
side of the road, a chain-link fence on
the other. People lined both sides of the
road, stood atop the wall and atop the old
jailhouse, and held telephone poles and
signposts. The streets filled shoulder to
shoulder: old cruisers and college kids on
break, local islanders and upscale sport
fishermen all crunched together, sweating
and smiling in the heat as if Bruce
Springsteen were in town.
Speakers that all day had jammed island
music were silenced.
People whispered, “They’re coming.”
The drums began; great distant booms
echoed from the hill above the town,
backed by cowbells and horns. People
sandwiched even tighter in order to open
a lane in the street. Formally dressed
constables smiled and paced back and
forth, and laughed with friends, their
black leather belts and shoes glistening in
the sun.
Then came kids dancing in a frenzy at
the head of the parade, all wearing match-
ing costumes like blue and white birds,
dancing a well-practiced choreographed
dance, followed by women young and old,