Mangrove Bush is a quaint little settlement on South Long Island that comes pretty close to cutting the island into two.
Less than a quarter mile wide, the north side is hilly with breathtaking cliffs overlooking the ocean whose turquoise water on a calm day dazzles the eye. Erosion over time has created magnificent caves and mini ponds. The hills, at least 75-100 feet above sea level, are a protective shield for the settlement in adverse weather.
The south side is characterised by flats, low land and shallow waters – the ideal habitat for the illusive bone fish. In between this geological contrast is a settlement of 100 people, 80 per cent of whom have the last name ‘Knowles.’
Mangrove Bush was home to the late Rupert Knowles, legendary boat builder and skipper. Fifty years ago, he built the Lady Muriel which dominated the annual Family Island Regatta in George Town, Exuma, for many years.
“I was 14 when he built the Lady Muriel,” says his son Bert. “I helped him build it. I installed most of the planks and the timbers. There wasn’t electricity. I did everything by hand.” In addition to Lady Muriel, Bert and his father also built Tida Wave, Stormy Weather, Ocean Wave and Gem. He also built Rupert’s Legend in memory of his father. In the late 1990s, he represented The Bahamas at the Smithsonian Cultural Fair in Washington DC, in boat-building.
Bert is planning Lady Muriel two to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Lady Muriel, named after Rupert’s wife and his mother. “She’ll be the fastest sloop ever built,” he boasts.
“I’ll close the book on 50 years of boat building. Now what my sons will do, I’m not sure. They’re not qualified yet to design.” No doubt the 2007 Annual Family Regatta may will see a re-enactment of the 1950s as a brand-new Lady Muriel (Lady M) enters the Class A competition.
“When daddy designed his boats, he’d ask me what I thought about the model. And I’d say, ‘She looks good.’ In 1989 I built a boat named the Ocean Wave. Daddy used to first do a drawing, but I don’t draw. I just go and do it.”
Bert had his baptism in sailing competition at age 13 in the 1956 George Town regatta, when he finished in first place in the children’s race. While his sons could build boats, says Bert, “they’re not in the boat building business. The money isn’t there but for me, boat building is a hobby.”
Boat-building, in addition to being an art and a science, is also a very tedious undertaking. Says Bert: “You have to search the bushes for the timber. You gotta look for a good size that you can shape. It’s hard work just to go in the bush and get it. Each timber is different – a boat is not like a house. A boat has proportions.”
And three generations of the Knowles family of Mangrove Bush have developed an eye for those proportions like no other. Bert reveals: “Some of the other settlements used to build boats but not like us. My daddy and my uncle started when they were young. Other fellas build couple boats in-between. But Mangrove Bush is the capital of boat-building. You wanna fast boat, you go to Mangrove Bush.” Bert was born in Mangrove Bush on July 27,1942. He spent a short time in George Town Primary School but finished his schooling at Mangrove Bush at age 14. “There was nothing to do around here except for pot hole farming. I did some of that before starting work on mail boats and in 1960, I went to work Diamond Crystal Salt Farm as a heavy equipment operator,” he recalls. “I got married when I was 21. I have four children, Bernard, Barry, Ben and Muriel.” In the early 1970s, Bert ventured in farming on a grander scale, cultivating some 20 acres and invested in a tractor and trucks which he offered to other farmers as well. He grew bananas, vegetables and pineapples which were sold to hotels and wholesalers in Nassau.
Bert is semi-retired, but in addition to building the Muriel 2, he has a mini-resort complex overlooking the ocean in Clarence Town.
No one would deny the contributions his father and he have made to the social and economic well-being of Mangrove Bush.
Bert, however, throws modesty out of the window when he offers: “I think I did more for Long Island as one man than the rest of Long Islanders put together. You know, helping out, making things happen like the regattas, building boats for regattas, getting tractors for the farms.
By: Norman Rolle, Weekender Editor, The Nassau Guardian
