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The name Bahamas is derived from Spanish explorers who
termed the area Baja Mar, meaning shallow sea.
Although locals claim Ring Toss to be their invention, it is
most likely a derivative of a medieval English game.
Q:
How many Bahamians does it take to clean a fi sh?
A:
Six. One to clean it and five to stand around drinking beer
(as told to the author by a local as the two stood around
drinking beer watching a man clean fish).
In
the early days of sport fishing the waters around Bimini
were teeming with sharks. It was commonly thought impossible
to catch a giant bluefin whole, the sharks invariably got to
the tuna before the angler could get it onboard. This
changed in 1935 when Ernest Hemingway employed an aggressive
new fighting style and landed the first un-mutilated bluefin
tuna.
The ending scene from the movie Silence of the Lambs was
shot on Bimini.
Parts of Cocoon were also shot on the island.
Roundtrip airfare from Miami on Chalks was $26.00 in 1974.
Leicester Hemingway, the brother of Ernest, edited the
island newspaper for many years.
A
Bimini boxing glove refers to using an empty conch shell
as a sort of brass knuckle.
According to one newspaper article, instead of the Watergate
burglary, G. Gordon Liddy originally proposed setting up the
Democratic Presidential candidates by luring them on to a
yacht with a bevy of high dollar call girls. The
destination? Bimini, of course. A few years later Gary Hart
would fulfill the devious plan but without any help from
Liddy or the Republicans.
Ernest Hemingway was a founding member of the IGFA and
served as Vice President until his death. Along with Michael
Lerner, he wrote many of the rules that formed the core IGFA
regulations.
The Rockwell Mansion on Paradise Point was originally built
by George Lyon for $3 million in the 1950s. A prolific
inventor, Lyon held more than 1,200 patents, second only to
Thomas Edison.
Lyon made a large sum of money from a patent on the clip
that holds a hubcap to the wheel. The art deco structure was
eventually sold to the Rockwell Company.
To
get the conch out of a conch shell, you must fi rst make a
hole in the shell to break the suction. This is why empty
conch shells all seem to have a small hole in them.
In
1978, during a dispute over commercial fishing rights,
Bahamian Defence Force boats attacked and captured a number
of Cuban vessels poaching lobster near Great Isaac. The
confrontation between the two countries became known as the
Spiny Lobster War.
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