Columbus Isle is the name tourism gave to San Salvador, a hundred-and-sixty-three-square-kilometre island at the eastern edge of the Bahamas. Nine hundred residents, a road that circles it in ninety minutes, a few inland salt lakes, and an underwater shelf that stops dead a kilometre offshore. That last feature is what made the island’s name among divers.
The essentials in four lines
- Fly into San Salvador (ZSA), on a seasonal non-stop from Montreal or with a connection through Nassau.
- The Bahamas keep Eastern time, like Montreal, all year. The Bahamian dollar equals one US dollar.
- A very isolated island: one large property, very few shops and independent restaurants.
- December to April is the dry season. Hurricane season runs June to November.
The wall
Barely a kilometre off the west coast, the limestone shelf breaks off and the bottom drops from twelve metres to more than a thousand. That vertical drop is ten minutes away by boat, which is exceptional: elsewhere in the Caribbean an equivalent site often means an hour of sailing.
Visibility regularly exceeds thirty metres, the water stays between 25 and 28 degrees depending on the season, and some forty marked sites line the coast: arches, chimneys, canyons, coral gardens. Reef sharks and hammerheads frequent the area, above all in winter.
For snorkelling, several shallow reefs are reachable from the beach, with turtles and stingrays metres from shore.
The island of the first encounter
San Salvador has been regarded since the nineteenth century as the most likely site of Christopher Columbus’s first landfall in the Americas, on 12 October 1492. The identification is still debated among historians, but the island carries its traces: four commemorative monuments, including a stone cross planted on the west coast, mark the locations proposed by different hypotheses.
What that means for a visitor: this small piece of land is the contact point between two worlds that did not know of each other, and the island tells it without emphasis, with a few plaques and a great deal of quiet.
What else there is to see
Dixon Hill lighthouse, built in 1887, still burns kerosene and its mechanism is wound by hand every two hours by a keeper. It is one of the last three in the world in that condition. You can climb it and watch the lamp lit at dusk.
The ruins of Watling’s Castle, an abandoned eighteenth-century cotton plantation, are visited freely at the end of a path. The interior of the island is filled with a series of linked salt lakes where flamingos and herons nest.
Cockburn Town, the main settlement, fits into a few streets: a grocery, a school, a local museum and a dock.
The beaches
They are long, white and practically deserted. The west coast, in the lee, has flat water and suits swimming year-round. The east coast, facing the Atlantic, is wilder: magnificent to walk, but swimming there calls for caution.
What to know before booking
San Salvador is one of the most isolated destinations in the archipelago. There is one large property, a few small inns, two or three restaurants outside the hotels and a handful of shops. There is no nightlife, no shopping centre and no excursion beyond diving and the island loop.
That is precisely what appeals to those who return. But if you want choice, varied outings and restaurants, a larger island will suit better. Our criteria for choosing an all-inclusive hotel help with that calculation, all the more since the all-inclusive plan is the rule here rather than the exception, for lack of alternatives nearby.
When to go
From December to April the air holds around 26 °C, rain is rare and underwater visibility is at its best. It is also the season when hammerheads are most often seen.
From May to November the water warms to 28 degrees and the sea is calmer, but the cyclone season means watching the forecasts. Our guide on when to travel south from Montreal sets out the pricing calendar.
To plan this trip, see also our Bahamas page, Marsh Harbour, Nassau and our month-by-month calendar.
