The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Spanish Wells council member says the community “overwhelmingly” opposes Crystal Cruises using it as a port of call while blasting both the cruise line and the government for failing to consult residents.

Chuck Pinder, a fisherman by profession, told Tribune Business that while some on the island were in favour of Crystal Cruises’ weekly calls on Spanish Wells, council members and community leaders “feel we are not in a setting to handle this amount of people”.

He added: “There’s supposed to be a meeting held this afternoon with the community to respond to their feelings and thoughts of what is about to take place, which was actually pretty much thrown in our lap unbeknownst to the district council, until Crystal Cruises had all of their paperwork and permits in order from the government.”

Spanish Wells residents are “very upset” over how this process was handled, said Mr Pinder, who reiterated: “As far as we are concerned there was nothing known to the council as a whole about any of this taking place until Crystal Cruises had all of the permits to proceed with putting in Spanish Wells on their itinerary, and also their anchoring permit to drop anchor down at Egg Island.”

Mr Pinder argued that there was more to Spanish Wells than what he described as the limited number of “vendors” who Crystal Cruises asserts it has spoken to. “Crystal Cruises said they have been engaging with businesses and people in the community, but they have provided no names of the people they have spoken to,” he said.

“The district council to this day have no idea of who these people are, and when you ask Crystal Cruises, they refer to ‘vendors on Spanish Wells’ and then they stop responding. We sit we sit around the table as the district council when plans or business license applications come to be approved by the council for businesses or property, or when building is going to take place on personal property or whatever.

“We know who they are, they know what they are applying for.... the whole nine yards. The council does its work properly. People come in, they fill out their forms from the administrator’s office, and we know what they want. Well, with Crystal Cruises, we knew nothing until these people had everything.”

Mr Pinder labelled this as “an abuse of power” by central government in Nassau, arguing that the local government was “disrespected to the fullest throughout this whole entire process”.

Vowing to maintain the pressure on the government and Crystal Cruises, Mr Pinder said that if the cruise line follows through with calling on Spanish Wells “we will see what kind of country we are living in”.

“We are happy with the tourism that we have and the way we conduct our business, and we don’t want to bring a bunch of traffic and a bunch of trash. We don’t want to see porta potties all over our island and all over our beaches. We don’t want someone walking up to us from Crystal Cruises telling us that we can’t be in this area on the beach at this time,” he added.

Crystal Cruises, via its 900-passenger Crystal Serenity vessel, has named Spanish Wells as one of multiple Bahamian ports of call for when it launches seven-day voyages through this nation on July 3. The cruises, which will run through November this year, will use Nassau and Bimini as so-called ‘home ports’ while also calling on Exuma, San Salvador and Long Island.

Spanish Wells was chosen as an alternative destination to Harbour Island, after hoteliers, tourism operators and residents there objected to being used as a port-of-call. However, similar resistance is being mounted by its north Eleuthera neighbour, with a petition that was started last week against Crystal Cruises on change.org having obtained almost 1,200 signatures by yesterday evening.

The petition said: “We must stop Crystal Cruises from adding Spanish Wells, Bahamas, as a port of call and anchoring its ship at Egg Island. The Crystal Serenity ship carries between ship 900 to 1000 people.

“Spanish Wells has a population of fewer than 2,000 people, it is only two miles long by a half-mile wide and is a quaint fishing town. It’s a quiet, safe and clean island. It is unlikely the Spanish Wells’ infrastructure can handle such a sudden increase in stress.”

Continuing to make the case against Crystal, the petition added: “Over the last few years, Spanish Wells has created a strong and unique tourist brand and related products. Most who come to Spanish Wells rent houses, take excursions and make very significant contributions to the local economy.

“Recently, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) disclosed in findings published by a local newspaper that it takes 28 cruise tourists to spend as much as a single land-based stayover tourist. Experience informs us that people choose to visit Spanish Wells exactly because it is not a mass tourist destination. A high-volume, low-spend model of tourism is adverse to the Spanish Wells brand and would pose significant economic, social and environmental risks to the small community.”