A Sweetings Cay Treasure

Rosetta-Cartwright-No-Watermark

When I used to live in Grand Bahama Island and well before my work on my newsletter or  TheBahamasWeekly.com), I was always taking photos no matter where I went. I am not sure if it's my desire to record my life, and those of the people I love, or the example my mother led documenting much of our lives in photos (which was rare in those days). I grew up with a wall full of photo albums all in date order, my mom was that organized.

The beauty of taking so many photos is that one day they become treasures.

I was going through my online photos the other day and came upon a Sweetings Cay album. Tony Macaroni's Conch Experience runs excursions out there and I went out several times with my children or with visiting friends. I was looking through the photo thumbnails and something made me zoom in. "Is that the current Miss World Bahamas, Rosetta Cartwright!?" I thought staring at the photo of children playing barefoot on the road in a plastic car?

For those that do not know, Sweetings Cay is a quaint little fishing village located 55 miles east of Freeport, Grand Bahama only accessible by boat and has a population of @ 400 people, "most of whom live by selling lobster and conch in Freeport. The village stretches about a mile, and there people walk or use golf carts to get around."

I sent the photo to a mutual friend and he checked with her, and yes indeed it was her! ...and guess what!? She said it is the only photo she has of her childhood as all her others were ruined in the storms (I assume the hurricanes). She asked if I had any more, and I looked again and found one other, one of her on a day I visited and school was in session and they were on lunch break.

I remember her as a special-spirited child and of course so striking to look at - her eyes I remember most. Rosetta hails from a small fishing village and became Miss World Bahamas.

I'm glad I was able to gift her a tiny piece of her childhood.

(Photos at top: The reigning 2014-15 Miss World Bahamas, Rosetta Cartwright and the two photos I took in Sweetings Cay many years ago that I sent her today. She said she thinks she was 6 years old.)