Pursuit of Paradise

There are people who romantically dream of a retreat to a second home that will fulfill their individual desires. PURSUIT OF PARADISE: Memoir of a Bahama Mama is the experience of an American medical/fishing family who chose the island of Green Turtle Cay, Abaco, Bahamas for their retreat. In l974, they re-connected with a physician-fishing friend who, at age forty-two, gave up a lucrative New York medical practice to become the GTC doctor for thirty years. Green Turtle Cay is one of seven hundred islands that comprise the Bahamas. Following the American Revolution the British rewarded the Loyalists with land grants in the Bahamas, then a part of the British Commonwealth. Some of the Loyalists had been plantation owners. They transported their black slaves with their families. The population of four hundred on Green Turtle Cay represents both colors in almost equal numbers. The Bahama Mama and her family became engaged with the Bahamians; they learned about Bahamian history and life style as opposed to limiting their friendships to the approximately ten percent American/European/Canadian homeowners. For sixty days yearly their life on this island seduced them and captured their imagination. In years past the small outer islands of the Bahamas were referred to as the “Innocent Islands” or “Family Islands.” “Family” remains; “Innocent” was lost when the island people were increasingly connected to the distant world. This memoir recalls the choices a family had to make when faced with unexpected events. The author says, “We thought we had discovered a fishing paradise. We discovered that the realities of life intrude–even in paradise.”