Grand Bahama Island, approximately 96 miles long west to east and 17 miles at its widest point north to south, is the fourth largest island in the archipelago. It is large enough to have anything you want and it does. It is diverse offering private hideaway spots when you want to get away from civilization, and lively luxurious locations when being a part of a crowd is preferred.
Grand Bahama Island, given the name Gran Bajamar, meaning “Great Shallows” by the Spanish is more than long stretches of deserted clean-white beaches, it is an ecological mecca. Touted as having one of the world’s longest underwater limestone cave systems, Grand Bahama’s natural beauty is bolstered by the variety of rare flowers you’d find, a wide variety of exotic birds, a Gold Rock Beach and all six of the ecosystems found in The Bahamas.
And that’s just the beginning.
Significant foreign investments abound on Grand Bahama Island.
There is an oil bunkering facility owned by Vopak, a transshipment/container port partly owned by Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa and the Grand Bahama Port Authority. There are also quarrying operations on the island and a large shipyard.
Interestingly, many of the 50,000 people living on the island were not born here, instead they came from all over The Bahamas, some descending from The Turks & Caicos.
Key Grand Bahama Communities
Freeport is the major city of Grand Bahama Island. As mentioned above, it holds the commercial ship harbour and the main airport. Freeport has many good shops and roads, and is very clean. Foreign investors are just now waking up to the large number of pristine ocean and canal front properties that exist in the Freeport area. As of April 2007, premium waterfront lots can be found for as little as 20% of their counterparts on the Florida coast. Construction in the Freeport area is picking up quickly as a result. An attractive feature of Freeport property is that it’s covered by the Hawksbill Creek agreement. Under this agreement, personal real estate is tax free until 2015.
Lucaya is an important tourist destination on Grand Bahama Island. It has beautiful beaches and contains several big hotels including the most popular, five-star “Our Lucaya” hotel chain made up of the Sheraton and Westin hotels and the Lanai Suites located at Lighthouse Point. Count Basie Square in Port Lucaya provides regular live entertainment targeted at cruise ship patrons. Fishing, snorkeling, sight seeing, and “booze cruise” trips leave from Bell Channel Harbour on a daily basis.
West End is officially the capital of Grand Bahama, though Freeport is believed by many to be. It’s the oldest city and western most settlement on the island. It has received recent notoriety in 2001 when Old Bahama Bay, purchased the marina and made significant renovations including complete refurbishment of the docks, many new canals cut for luxury home sites, luxury condos built, and restaurants built. In March 2007, Ginn Resorts took over operation of Old Bahama Bay investing heavily having purchased 1,720 acres for a luxury resort, marina, and home sites. The project is called Ginn Sur Mer.
McLeans Town is the eastern most settlement and a 30 minute ferry ride from the northernmost settlement of the Island of Abaco.