The Tribune

By ERIC WIBERG

LITTLE San Salvador lies right in between Orange Creek, North Cat  Island, and Bannerman Town on the southern tip of Eleuthera. It was just a reef-surrounded islet in the middle of a shipping channel into and out of The Bahamas, until in recent years it was sold or leased by a cruise ship conglomerate. Out of sight, less often visited by Bahamian mailboats, this uninhabited island has since been renamed “RelaxAway” and “Half Moon” Cay by marketing managers for casino magnates miles away, slipping further from its natural state and our grasp with every tide. From the 1880s to the 1980s the Newbold family owned most of the 2,400 acres.

Here are a sampling of the incidents and wrecks which have occurred in Little San Salvador, Cat Island, San Salvador, and Conception Island over the years up till 2025. We learn of them many from Wrecksite, Wikipedia, wreck historian Jim Jenney, and the log of yacht Illusion V. In 1874 the steamer City of Guatemala grounded on the northwestern tip of San Salvador, and the American passenger and cargo ship of 1,505 tons was wrecked. During September 1883, Captain Dorsey of the ship Carleton, en route from Nassau to Inagua with 14 passengers, sought shelter from a hurricane in Little San Salvador. “The ship was blown out of the safety of the harbour, and as a result multiple passengers died, including Rev. J. S. J. Higgs, the rector of the parish of San Salvador Island.” (Wikipedia).

In 1889 the 2,116-ton British steamer Chancellor hit Low Cay in Snow Bay at southeast San Salvador, and wrecked. An Australian steamer of 1,852 tons named Frascati hit the northwest coast of San Salvador near the present-day Club Med, and wrecked. On New Year’s Day, 1902, this fruit trader ship ship struck a reef, was abandoned offshore, and sank just after midnight. The British sloop Lizzie Culmer was blown ashore and wrecked on San Sal in June of 1901, while heading to Nassau from Rum Cay with cargo and passengers. Fortunately the schooner William F. Campbell, laden with pineapples, rescued survivors, however not until a woman perished.

This was followed in 1937 by the Canadian sailing schooner of 1,035 tons named Avon Queen which sank off San Salvador in deep water and was abandonded. The ship was over 20 years old. In 1907, Dr. N. L. Britton of the New York Botanical Garden led a party to find new plant specimens on Little San Salvador. In 1958 a diesel motor ship named Island hit the eastern coast of central Cat Island at Harts Bay, and the Cypriot-flagged boat of 927 tons was wrecked.

The Duke of Windsor and US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt considered converting Little San Salvador into a large US Naval base during World War II. The island's popularity for US Presidents continued, with FDR in 1935 being escorted fishing there by USS Farragut and USS Potomac, and the 1940s, when he fished off Little San Salvador. Then in 1957 President Eisenhower trolled there as well. Voluntarily cast ashore there, rather than shipwrecked, in 1972 “a group from Boston University visited the island for an ecological survey.” Around Christmas of 1975 the skipper of the touristic tall-ship Phantome informed authorities of “a suspicious midnight rendezvous between a 28-foot boat and a freighter” off Little San Salvador. After their aircraft crashed, two surivovors from Michigan, in the US, were marooned on the island early in 1976.

In 1978 a Panamanian cargo ship of 386 tons named Palmetta was wrecked north of Conception Island, in the direction of Cat Island and the diesel ship of 386 tons foundered. In 1980 the motor ship Zeilen of 575 tons was wrecked on the northeast coast of San Salvador. Then in 1981 the motor ship Nathaly grounded in central San Salvador at Fortune Hill. Over a large area there were many wrecks, spread apart geographically and in time – no doubt many shipwrecks than are known, given how thinly-populated many of the islands were and still are.

On Conception Island just this year a shipwrecked solo sailor was rescued by a community of boaters and returned to his family and fellow fishermen in Acklins. The story is told by one of his rescuers, Chief Officer Wesley Walton. On April 18, 2025 he published “M/Y Illusion V’s Crew Help Rescue a Shipwrecked Local in the Bahamas.” He tells how “Kevin Buzzard found himself stranded on the remote Conception Island… a 44-year-old fisherman from Acklins [he], was delivering a 26-foot center console boat from Nassau to Acklins.” During this nearly 250-mile voyage alone, off “Conception Island, Kevin ran out of fuel, leaving him adrift and heading toward the rocky reef surrounding the island.” Then on Valentine’s Day, his “vessel wrecked, forcing him to abandon ship and swim to the safety of dry land. Stranded without food, water, or any means of communication on an uninhabited island, his situation became increasingly dire.”

After four days, the author and his crew “dropped anchor off Conception Island in the early morning. While the crew explored the island by tender, a group of recreational sailors approached them with the alarming news of Kevin’s predicament and requested assistance.” His team then gathered “essential supplies of food and water” and set off towards Kevin. “Upon arrival, they quickly assessed Kevin’s condition and recognised the urgency of the situation. He was severely sunburned, dehydrated, covered in sand, and in shock, not knowing where he was. You could not only see but feel his desperation.”

Despite the remoteness, to the extent that even BASRA could not get assets to him in time, the mega-yacht “crew organized a rescue boat to ensure his safe return home early the next morning. The[y even] made contact with Kevin’s wife, Diane, sending her a video letting her know that he was alive and had food and water.” Finally, First Officer Walton writes, after “a lot of back and forth communication between Diane and the Illusion V crew, a local rescue boat from Acklins” went to his aide and rescued Kevin Buzzard, reuniting him with his wife and family. For the past few hundred years, many of the stories of shipwreck in these southern waters as often end with survival and rescue and reunion.