Andros is the largest island in the Bahamas, with more land area than all other Bahamian islands combined. It runs roughly 160 kilometers north to south and up to 65 kilometers wide, but it is not one continuous island. Three major sections, North Andros, Mangrove Cay, and South Andros, are separated by wide tidal channels called bights. There are no roads connecting them. The western half of the island is largely uninhabited wetland and mangrove. Almost all settlements sit on the eastern coast. The population is fewer than 8,000 people. Andros is nicknamed the Sleeping Giant and the Big Yard.
- Nearest airports: San Andros Airport (SAQ / MYAN), Andros Town Airport (ASD / MYAF), Congo Town Airport (COX / MYCB)
- Climate: Tropical. Hot and wet May to November, warm and dry December to April.
Why people visit Andros
Andros is the bonefish capital of the world. The island's western flats, shallow limestone banks covered in a few feet of warm water, hold some of the densest bonefish populations anywhere. Anglers come specifically for this. The eastern coast offers a different kind of fishing, with dorado, tuna, sailfish, and wahoo in the deep water beyond the reef.
Andros has the highest concentration of blue holes found anywhere in the world: 178 inland and 50 oceanic. Blue holes are underwater sinkholes, some connected by cave systems running beneath the island. Divers come for the blue holes specifically. The reef wall off the eastern coast drops from shallow water to deep ocean within a short distance of shore, one of the more dramatic dive walls in the Bahamas.
More than 50 species of wild orchids grow in the subtropical forests and wetlands. Nine species of the orchid genus Epidendrum are endemic to the Bahamas, and all of them can be found on Andros. Six of the seven bird species endemic to the Bahamas live here, including the critically endangered Bahama Oriole. Andros has the only freshwater river in the Bahamas.
What made Andros
The Lucayan Taíno were here before Columbus. The Spanish called the island La Isla del Espiritu Santo, the Island of the Holy Spirit, but did not settle it. The Bahamas were granted to six British proprietors in 1670, and the island was named for Sir Edmund Andros, one of the proprietors. Pirates used Andros during the golden age of piracy. Morgan's Bluff and Morgan's Cave on North Andros are named after the privateer Henry Morgan. The settlement of Small Hope Bay nearby reportedly got its name from Morgan's claim that there would be small hope of anyone finding his buried treasure there. Whether the treasure exists is another matter. Morgan's Bluff today serves a more practical purpose: 19 million liters of freshwater are pumped from the island's aquifer there and shipped by barge to Nassau every day.
Loyalists arrived after the American Revolution. Their descendants, along with descendants of freed enslaved Africans, make up most of today's population. The settlement of Red Bays on the remote west coast is home to descendants of Black Seminoles, indigenous people and freed slaves who fled Florida in the 19th century and settled on Andros.
In 1966 the US Navy commissioned the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center, AUTEC, on the eastern coast of Andros at Fresh Creek. The facility uses the Tongue of the Ocean for underwater weapons testing and sonar evaluation. It is one of the two largest employers on the island alongside the Bahamian government.
In 1972 a batik fabric factory called Androsia was founded at Fresh Creek. The fabric, produced by hand using carved stamps and hot wax, has become part of the national dress of the Bahamas.
What you find
The eastern coast is where almost everyone lives and visits. The main settlements are Nicholl's Town in the north, Fresh Creek in the center, and Congo Town in the south. West Side National Park covers much of the uninhabited western coast. The interior is dense pine forest and wetland, largely trackless. Roads run north and south along the eastern coast but there are no east-west roads across the island.
Andros has its own mythology. The Chickcharnie is a creature from local folklore, described as a three-toed, owl-like being that lives deep in the pine forest. Locals treat it seriously. It is part of what makes Andros feel different from the resort islands to the east.
