By EDITOR

There is nothing else in the world that is all at once serene, awe inspiring and terrifying than the natural karst caverns that are blue holes. And it seems nothing else in the world keeps a secret better than these portals to an underwater world seldom seen by man and rarely traversed because of the danger involved and skill needed to unlock their pre-historical treasures.

If swimming is not one of your strongest assets and you are afraid of any part of the ocean where when you peer down at your toes you can’t watch them wiggle, then a dip in a blue hole might not be for you. But luckily you can enjoy their resplendent beauty from land as well as by sea.

Nowhere is the earth dotted with more blue holes than the islands of the Bahamas and nowhere on earth does a single almost symmetrical pit in the earth go from a pristine aquamarine perimeter to the total black of an abyss.

To stand beside a blue hole on land and look down into its unseen depths is akin to staring up at a starless/moonless night sky querying its vast expanse.

If you think a blue hole is simply a bucket-like pocket in the earth you would be wrong (though in some cases it is).

But the floor and walls of a blue hole can sometimes fan out, like dropping through a chimney and tumbling out into a great ballroom. In some instances a blue holes is merely the entrance to a vast cave system that often stretches for miles beneath land and ocean.

Blue Hole in Rock Sound, Eleuthera in the Bahamas - Photo Courtesy of Jordan Roberts

While this all sounds overwhelming and a bit freaky, blue holes are enjoyed by environmentalists, novice divers and snorkelers alike and in some settlements in the Bahamas, are used as the community swimming pool – though one teeming with marine life.

But where do these natural wonders come from and what are those secrets you were talking about, you ask.

During the ice age when sea levels were hundreds of meters below where they are now, these caves and cave systems were carved out over many hundreds of years by erosion due to rainfall.

What was left after the ice melted were a vast number of pits in the earth that filled with water and created what we know today as blue holes.

Last year National Geographic did an expose on the blue holes of the Bahamas for its August issue of the magazine and a segment for television. On its website it described blue holes as the “least studied and most threatened habitats on Earth.”

Some of the more famous blue holes around the world are the Great Blue Hole of Belize, Dean’s Blue Hole in Long Island, Bahamas and blue holes on Grand Bahama Island in the Bahamas that make up some of the longest subterranean, submerged caves in the world.

The Great Blue hole is a part of Belize’s protected barrier reef system and was made famous by renowned explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and has been kept in the spotlight by intrepid divers.

Dean's Blue Hole Long Island, Bahamas - Photo Courtesy of The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism

Dean’s Blue hole is said to be the deepest blue hole in the world and at almost 700 feet deep it has been used to set the world free diving record over and over again.

Undersea Blue holes afford those who dare to brave them some of the most ethereal experiences that can be had.

Most in-land blue hole exploration is done by expert cave divers, though there are some that are novice-diver friendly.

But when scientists strap on their special gear – Caribhype had the good fortune to view some of the gear first hand on Andros Island in the Bahamas last year – and brave toxic bacteria, strong currents and the dizzying halocline (where water of different salinities meet) found in the depths of some blue holes, amazing things are uncovered that have been lost for millennia.

National Geographic’s article spoke of explorers finding the skulls of Lucayan Indians – now long died out – deep within the cavernous blue holes. And they have even found the fossilized skull of a 3,000-year-old Cuban Crocodile; a species long forgotten in the Bahamas.

Blue holes are veritable treasure chests of ancient artifacts. Scientists have even found sand from the Sahara Desert, which must have been transported more than 6,000 miles.

But if you are not studying them, they are still a beautiful and intriguing natural wonders that have to be seen to be believed and should be an important part of any bucket list.

Here is the link to the National Geographic story for more awesomeness on blue holes – enjoy: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/08/bahamas-caves/todhunter-text

By EDITOR

Photos courtesy of Jamal Smith

The word Carnival might stir a number of sensations and emotions within the person who has participated in its crazy and awe-inspiring splendor, while those who have not experienced it are probably wildly jealous of those aforementioned people.

But for all the popularity surrounding it, many of the above bacchanalers, winers or road-chippers nor the green-with-envy future carnival pilgrims, know what its origins are.

Carnival owes its existence to a variety of people and cultures that fell into the melting pot of individuals we see participating its events today.

When people of the world hear of carnival they may think of both Brazil and the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T).

And while both countries celebrate this festival during the same time, culminating on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of the Catholic season of Lent, we will focus on the Carnival in T&T.

T&T’s carnival season begins Boxing Day, the 26th of December, and the fetes (parties for the T&T vernacular newbie) go straight through into Ash Wednesday.

That is why just about any person in the Caribbean or of Caribbean descent, anywhere across the world, will suggest you put T&T’s carnival on your bucket list.

Trinbagonians (the natives you will fete with) can trace their ancestries to just about anywhere in the world. And it is very important to understand where these people came from in order to explain why Carnival in T&T is revered the way it is.

Its people are the mirror reflection of the global color wheel and cosmopolitan passion that is displayed during the carnival season.

T&T carnival’s development is owed to several factors, including the celebration of wild costume parties pre-Ash Wednesday and masquerade balls that originate from European customs.

The use of feathers, beads and other natural objects and the use of drums and the ubiquitous parade through the streets, one of the greatest spectacles of Carnival, are all of African descent.

As the festival evolved over the past century, the influences of T&T Indians, Chinese, and even its original inhabitants, among other races, have been preserved and still contribute to carnival’s evolution through band names, music and by their general participation. They exemplify the mixture of Trinbago and by extension, the entire Caribbean.

Over the decades Carnival itself has been tweaked and fine-tuned into an art and true expression of cultural unity.

The music, though, is the paramount aspect of the culture.

In the early days, the carnival consisted more of drum beating and the playing of native songs, while the Europeans had their waltzes and polkas.

As the 20th century rolled in, and the contemporary soca kings and queens were hitting puberty, Carnival discovered several winning combinations.

With the development of the steel pan instrument and the musical genre Calypso, Carnival began evolving. And now Calypso has mutated into Soca and Chutney-soca, which have become the primary causes of ‘the wine’.

The wine is the clinical term for the gyration of the hips, and is an affliction of any true trinbagonian who, upon hearing these genres of music have an impulsive urge to move the legs forwards while shaking the hips back and forth and left to right.

The best way to celebrate Carnival is to be in T&T from the beginning of December until the weekend after Ash Wednesday.

However, if you are like most people and your mean boss only gave you two weeks of vacation, that’s ample time to glean the true spirit of T&T’s Carnival.

One should begin the pilgrimage in the land of liming and feting by engaging in Bacchanal Wednesday, which happens one week before Ash Wednesday. This is when fetes abound across the island.

The carnival weekend then begins on Sunday with the Dimanche Gras, where the King and Queen of Carnival are chosen and which continues straight into J’ouvert – the party portal to CARNIVAL.

At the eye-reddening hour of four a.m., J’ouvert will cause the streets of any of the major cities like San Fernando, Port of Spain or Chaguanas to fill with revelers who cover their bodies in mud, paint and/or oil.

J’ouvert then segues into the street party of the parade of bands where soca and alcohol-fired bodies follow trucks of performers and DJ’s down the road.

Tuesday wrangles in the main event where the true spectacle of Carnival emerges. People unabashedly jump-up, wine and party in the streets donning their carnival costumes, all the while following trucks of music blasting their favorite carnival tunes.

At midnight, however, all bands and costumed revelers stop their celebrations in respect of the beginning of Lent, with the dawn of Ash Wednesday. If devout Catholics are intermingled with the carnival crowd, they can attend one of the many churches to get their Ashes.

If your religion is feting, well you may just want to continue your liming – you won’t be alone.

As Ash Wednesday matures, people begin to migrate to either Maracas Bay, Manzanilla Beach or Mayaro Beach, where they relax their calloused feet and worn waist cartilage, and soak up the sun.

During this time, many individuals travel to the sister island of Tobago to enjoy the more tourist oriented of the islands.

While this (verbose) excerpt is just a condensed version of what the true experience of T&T’s carnival is, next year we’ll return to see if we can top the previous year’s experience.

A Trinbago Carnival is not a stroll, it is a marathon, especially if you want to experience it in its entirety.

In your Carnival survival kit should exist loads of hydrating liquids and a whole heap of stamina. So stay tuned.

By Editor

Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier is back in town. Haiti’s once exiled president touched down on the island nation Sunday, much to the dismay of the United States.

However, the haitian people seem happy at his surprise return from France after being gone for almost 25 years.

I got a glimpse into the minds of some Haitian immigrants living in the Bahamas who think Baby Doc’s return could spell relief and reconstruction for the country. Some even went as far as to insist Baby Doc’s return was an act of God.

“I don’t know what plan he has in his head, but maybe god sent him to try to fix everything (in Haiti),” one man told me.

Another said: “If you see him go back now maybe God send him back and maybe it will be better.”

One insanely optimistic man said, “everybody is suppposed to enjoy themselves now”.  The optimistic man left Haiti in 1973, more than 10 years before Baby Doc was ousted by angry Haitians and the US government. I wonder if he would return now that Duvalier has…

Baby Doc came to power after is father, Francios “Papa Doc” Duvalier died. Baby Doc was only 19-years-old at the time, making him the youngest country leader in the region. But he soon got a reputation for being a corrupt and cruel president, much like his father, which is why he was kicked out of his own country.

Now he is back in a country where one year after a devastating earthquake Cholera is claiming thousands of lives, a functional central government is missing, and the billions of dollars in aid money promised by the world since the quake, has not arrived in Haiti. The clear problem with the aid money is, while there are millions upon millions who need it, there is nobody to give it to – no local authority to disseminate it.

When the earth shook all those months ago and up to 220,000 people died and one million were left homeless, the philanthropy caps emblazoned with Haiti’s flag came out of dust boxes globally.

Aid in the billions of dollars was being promised to help Haiti, impoverished since the days of its emancipation. But to do what? Build itself back up to… What it was before? A shadow of its former self?

To the world it may seem Haiti has sunk  – maybe almost expectingly  – back into its decades old status quo.

Haitians must feel a deeper infliction than ever before though. Police are fighting to restore order and round up a host of rapists and murderers who escaped when the walls of the country’s prison collapsed in the earthquake, tent city’s that housed thousands of homeless are now ordered to be cleared down, and the country remains as poor as it had been before the earthquake.

Maybe Baby Doc’s return could be a good thing for a country that has not known a good thing since it’s victory over France in the 1800′s.

Is it too harsh to wonder if the earthquake in Haiti, opened the minds of people across the world to the country’s geographic location and nothing more?  

Is it a strech to query why the United States of America’s relationship to one of it’s closest neighbors in the region, has more to do with immigration policy and moderate tourism, but not much else?

Let’s hope the world lends a hand to Haiti, especially its closest neighbors. And instead of calling in the “economic hitmen”, lets hope countries inject something the Haitian people can grow on their own – education, manufacturing, farming - and finally win the economic independence they’ve sought since their very first taste of freedom.

What do you think?