Walker's Cay

Coordinates: 27°15′27.8″N 78°23′40.7″W / 27.257722°N 78.394639°W / 27.257722; -78.394639

Walker's Cay is the northern most island in the Bahamas. It is part of the North Abaco district of the Bahamas.

Grand Bahama Island is one of the major islands in the northern Bahamas. It is approximately 100 miles (161 km) long, lying in an west to east configuration. The major town of "Freeport" along with the small settlement of "West End" are significant points of entry to Grand Bahama Island. Walker's Cay lies 53 miles to the northeast of "West End", Grand Bahama Island.

Walker's Cay sits on the very edge of the Bahama "Bank", the bank containing shallow green colored water, averaging about 10 feet in depth. However, on the north side of Walker's the water drops off sharply into deep blue ocean depths.

Historically, Walker's Cay was named for a government official of the Bahamas during the days when the Bahamas were considered part of the British Empire, before the Bahamas gained their independence during the 1950s. In 1937 an American, "Buzz" Shonnard, acquired the island and built a hotel facility known as the "Walker's Cay Club" on the island. Walker's had an advantage of being unusually high in elevation at its eastern end and it was on this location that Shonnard placed his hotel which was built in the shape of a cross and contained a lounge, dining room, kitchen and several guest rooms. A pool was placed on the west side of the hotel, shaded by trees. Shonnard was a pilot and built an airstrip Walker Cay Airport (MYAW) on the island that was about 2,500 feet in length and capable of handling small aircraft. He also built a marina on the south shore that was capable of handling boats up to about 70 feet.

Cay

A cay (/ˈkiː/ or /ˈkeɪ/), also spelled caye or key, is a small, low-elevation, sandy island on the surface of a coral reef. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans (including in the Caribbean and on the Great Barrier Reef and Belize Barrier Reef).

Formation and composition

A cay forms when ocean currents transport loose sediment across the surface of a reef to a depositional node, where the current slows or converges with another current, releasing its sediment load. Gradually, layers of deposited sediment build up on the reef surface. Such nodes occur in windward or leeward areas of reef where surfaces sometimes occur around an emergent outcrop of old reef or beach rock.

The island resulting from sediment accumulation is made up almost entirely of biogenic sediment – the skeletal remains of plants and animals – from the surrounding reef ecosystems. If the accumulated sediments are predominantly sand, then the island is called a cay; if they are predominantly gravel, the island is called a motu.

Cay (band)

Cay were a London-based alternative rock band (containing members from the Netherlands, Sweden, England and Northern Ireland) who were active in the late 1990s. The band released one album and recorded several radio sessions for the BBC.

History

Cay formed in Camden, London in the mid-1990s around the nucleus of Dutch singer/rhythm guitarist Anet Mook and Swedish guitarist/pianist Nicky Olofsson, who were musical and romantic partners. The lineup solidified with the addition of London bass guitarist Tom Harrison and Northern Irish drummer Mark Bullock. The band name was hastily improvised from the initials of one of their demo tracks ("Cool As You") when Mook was talking to a record company.

"'Reasonable Ease...' is technically very variant with fast bits, slow bits, etc, but what we play within those parts is actually quite simple. On the other hand, a track like 'Better than Myself' is structurally very straightforward, but the parts we play that make up that structure are more technically difficult than a track that appears superficially to be pretty tricky. I guess it's safe to say that most of our songs are challenging in some way, even 'School' has a quirky time change throughout that means we can't fall asleep in the middle of it! In short, all our songs are fun to play. No-one ever complains that a part is boring for them to play, or if they do they get told to shut up and use their imagination to liven it up. I think that's what makes us a little bit better than a straightforward punk band."

Maya mythology

Maya mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Maya tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles. Other parts of Maya oral tradition (such as animal tales and many moralising stories) do not properly belong to the domain of mythology, but rather to legend and folk tale.

Sources

The oldest written myths date from the 16th century and are found in historical sources from the Guatemalan Highlands. The most important of these documents is the Popol Vuh or 'Book of the Council' which contains Quichean creation stories and some of the adventures of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque

Yucatán is an equally important region. The Books of Chilam Balam contain mythological passages of great antiquity, and mythological fragments are found scattered among the early-colonial Spanish chronicles and reports, chief among them Diego de Landa's Relación, and in the dictionaries compiled by the early missionaries.