Overview of San Salvador Island

Vital Stats

Latitude: 24°03' N
Longitude: 74°30' W
 Area: 68 square mi/175 square km
Dimensions: 11.95 mi long X 6.9 mi across at its widest point
Population: less than 1000
Highest Elevation: 37.5m above sea level
Large maps of San Salvador -- Opens in new window, ideal for printing
(Courtesy San Salvador GIS Database, University of New Haven and Gerace Research Center)

San Salvador is the easternmost-lying island of over 700 islands that make up the Bahamian Archipelago.


Location where the main highway on San Salvador crosses the runway of the airport.

Early History
San Salvador was originally named Guanahani by the Arawak people (also called the Lucayans) when they made their way there from South America between 1000 and 1300 A.D. On Oct. 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on a small island in the Caribbean. Most historians agree that Columbus landed on the island that today bears the name he bestowed (meaning Holy Savior), but there is some controversy on the subject of just where exactly he did land. He wrote in his journal, "The beauty of these islands surpasses that of any other and as much as the day surpasses the night in splendour." His sentiment of the moment was not precisely shared by the Arawak, who were subsequently enslaved by the Spanish to work in the mines of Cuba and Haiti. The only traces left of their culture are a few archaeological sites, in particular Pigeon Creek. The British took control of the Bahamas in the 16th century, mostly for its strategic value near the Spanish colonies. Sir Francis Drake roamed the area for several years while preying on Spanish shipping. The Bahamas were declared a possession of the British crown in 1629.

Cross at Long Bay, the site where Columbus is supposed to have landed in 1492. Monument was erected in 1956.

Beginning about 1680, the island was used as a stronghold by pirate John Watling, after whom it was named at that time. In the 18th and 19th century much of San Salvador was covered by British cotton plantations run by imported African slaves. When the British Crown abolished slavery in 1834, the island shifted to a sharecropping system that failed miserably, leaving the population of the island at a bare subsistence level by the beginning of the 20th century. In 1926, at the request of of its inhabitants, the name of the island was changed from Watling's Island to San Salvador by the Bahamian government. Much of the current infrastructure was built by the U.S. Navy in the 1950s, when they constructed what is now the Gerace Research Institute to use as a tracking station.

Climate

The Bahamian climate is very pleasant, lying on the edge of the anticyclone belt. The weather is particularly pleasant in summer, between June and October, when it is cooler than the eastern seaboard of the USA or in the Eastern Caribbean islands. Unfortunately this is also the hurricane season, which lasts from July to November. Tropical storms are common, and they provide the greater portion of the island's water supply. These phenomena are responsible for the a significant amount of freshwater and sediment input to the interior lakes discussed further below. Although several years can go by without a major hurricane affecting the Bahamas, they do occur occasionally, such as Hurricane Floyd in 1999, which caused extensive damage to some of the islands. In winter, cold fronts bring a greater variety of wind directions but it is still pleasantly warm and dry. Annual rainfall on San Salvador averages only ~101 cm and evaporation exceeds precipitation in most years. The rainy season lasts from June to December, with October being San Salvador's wettest month. (As a result our program hits the tail end of the rainy season. In the 2000 program, the first week was almost solid rain, the second glorious sun.)
Landsat image of San Salvador. Light blue areas are shallow zones with prolific calcareous benthos. Light and medium green areas (not the olive) are lakes and sinkholes. The white region on the lower right side of the island is Pigeon Creek, a tidal inlet (or estuary, by some definitions).

The interior of the island is dominated by a number of hypersaline lakes, the existence of which was first recorded by Christopher Columbus during his initial landing in the area. Dense microbial mats blanket the shallow sediments in many of these lakes and are the dominant biotic feature. (We will wade into these lakes to take samples and get a feel for a microbially infested bottom.) With the onset of the dry season in November, large areas of the mats become and remain desiccated for much of the year. At the edges of the lakes, some communities may remain desiccated for several years, depending on yearly rainfall. Additionally, as lake levels recede and water within the mats evaporates, exposed mats are subjected to intense solar radiation, high temperatures, and even greater salinity levels. These regions have been the subject of much study because they represent some of the harshest environments for life on the planet. The nature of the lakes has been virtually unimpacted despite terrigenous, atmospheric, and anthropogenic nutrient inputs.

Landmarks

Cockburn Town
Pronounced "ko-burn," San Salvador's largest settlement is situated on the west coast of the island. It is named for Sir Francis Cockburn, the British governor of the Bahamas when the settlement was established time around 1840. Originally called Riding Rocks Settlement, it at one time stretched from Riding Rock Point through the current location of the town. Cockburn Town provides most of the island's services (including mail, telephone service, and electricity). It also contains the lone stoplight on the island, which is currently non-functional.

Farquharson Plantation
Known locally as "Blackbeard's Castle" because he may have once held court there. This plantation is probably the most famous plantation ruins in the Bahamas. It includes what might have been the great house, a prison and a kitchen. There is also a cattle trough cut out of solid rock.

Dixon Hill Lighthouse
While established in 1856, the current lighthouse was built by the Imperial Lighthouse Service in 1887. Powered by kerosene and utilizing a twin lens floating in a mercury bath, the lighthouse has 400,000 candle power and a visibility of 19 miles. Operated (and refueled every 2 hours 15 minutes) by hand, it stands 163 feet above high water (highest point on the island) and gives a double flash every 25 seconds. It is one of only 4 kerosene lighthouses in the Bahamas and one of ten in the world. Despite its age, it remains an important navigational beacon for both commercial shipping and recreational sailing in this region of the Atlantic Ocean.


Dixon Hill Lighthouse, on the eastern side of the island.
Watlings Castle
Substantial ruins of a plantation that may have belonged to the pious buccaneer of the same name. Inhabited by Loyalist plantation owners in the 19th century. Stands on a point 85 ft. above sea level on the south end of the island that provides a simultaneous view of both sides of the island. Also includes buildings used for industrial or storage purposes, a main house, a cookhouse, and slave quarters.

References
Gerace, Donald T., Ostrander, Gary K., and Smith, Garriet W., Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands, in CARICOMP – Caribbean coral reef, seagrass and mangrove sites, Coastal region and small island papers 3, UNESCO, Paris, 347p.
Gerace Research Center Information Sheet
http://www.geographia.com/bahamas/bsssin02.htm
http://www.geraceresearchcenter.com
http://www.marine.unc.edu/Paerllab/research/sansal_site/pages/index.htm
http://www.noonsite.com/Countries/Bahamas
http://www.thebahamian.com/sansalvador.html