Introduction to Governor's Harbour

With a British colonial heritage that goes back at least 300 years, Governor's Harbour is the island's oldest settlement and was reportedly the Eleutherian Adventurers' first landing place. The largest town on Eleuthera after Rock Sound, it lies midway along the 161km-long (100-mile) island. A few of its clapboard-sided houses evoke the gracious elegance of Harbour Island to the north, and the community's sleepy harborfront carries memories of the town's role as a provider of black pineapple to the supermarkets of England, Canada, and the United States. Today, however, things can get very sleepy indeed here. This is Out Island living at its most peaceful and uneventful.

The town currently has a population of about 1,500, with some bloodlines going back to the original settlers, the Eleutherian Adventurers, and to the Loyalists who followed some 135 years later. A scattering of fine old homes lines the streets uphill from the harbor, amid trailing bougainvillea and coppices of casuarina trees. James Cistern is a little hamlet north of the Governor's Harbour Airport.