Joseph Darville has fond memories of swimming with his young son off the south coast of Grand Bahama island, and watching together as scores of dolphins frolicked offshore. A lifelong environmentalist now aged 82, Darville has always valued the rich marine habitat and turquoise blue seas of the Bahamas, which have lured locals and tourists alike for generations.
The dolphins are now mostly gone, he says, as human encroachment proliferated and the environment deteriorated. “You don’t see them now; the jetskis go by and frighten them off.
“There’s a lot going on. It’s a tragedy – and continues to be a tragedy,” says Darville.
Now, he fears further acceleration of the decline, with the scheduled opening next year of Carnival Cruise Line’s vast Celebration Key resort, now under construction on the island’s south coast.
The sprawling entertainment complex across a mile-long beach, already stripped of its protective mangroves, will ultimately bring up to an additional 4 million people a year to the island, Carnival says, with four of its ships able to dock simultaneously.
Concerns about giant cruise ships bringing multitudes of tourists, and pollution, to the ecologically fragile Bahamas are nothing new. Neither is the concept of foreign-owned cruise companies buying land to build private retreats exclusively for their passengers: Disney’s Castaway Cay, a private island near Great Abaco, last year celebrated its 25th birthday.