Junkanoo at Green Turtle Cay

Junkanoo is what people in the Bahamas do to celebrate the New Year. Jim looked it up and learned that the name pays hommage to (yikes!) an African slave-trader named John Canoe! Whatever it was, it was good, old fashioned family fun! We had a great feed of barbeque, rice & conch and baked macaroni & cheese (Huh? Yes! It's really Bahamian treat!). With a population of maybe 300, we practically knew every one that was there! It was just like attending Hey-Day in Kemptville! Then the Junkanoo Rush (the performers) came down the hill in a whirl of white and blue with flashes of pink and yellow, what a scene! And could these guys press the volume button, or what?!? Even the littlest of boys were shaking the gound with those drum-beats!

After twice around the town (so small!) the Junkanoo headed for the basket-ball court, their version of the Villiage green, and continued to play and dance. According to tradition, there was a scarily-dressed charachter let loose into the crowd to scare all the evil spirits away for the whole year. Alas, he was moving too fast to be captured by either rambunctios lttle boy or the camera! I think it was about then that the "Goombay Smash "(the local tipple) made an appearance, because the highly energized Big Cheese said for all to go around the town again; we cut back to the boat.

We hitched a ride back to our end of the island, and were picked up by a mommy of one of the little girls. This lively sprite told me that she just plain didn't want to go around again!

It was quite fun to be welcomed into the small (TINY!) town crowd for this special event, Green Turtle puts on one of the bigger Junkanoos around.

So Happy New Year, keep the bad spirits away and if you think os us, dump some pineapple and coconut juice into some rum and chase your own spirits away!