Club Med Ruins: a crumbling Caribbean resort hidden just steps from a beautiful pink sand beach

Most people come to French Leave Beach for the water, and it is an entirely reasonable decision, as the 2-km or, if you prefer, 1,2 miles, crescent of pink sand on Eleuthera’s Atlantic coast is the kind of place that makes you question all your other travel choices.

The Bahamian island of Eleuthera is a beautiful destination with miles of remote beaches and sports and activities including deep sea fishing, scuba diving, snorkeling and exploring.
First inhabited by Lucayan Indians, Spanish explorers came upon the island in the late 1400s and by the early 1500s had enslaved them to perish in the silver and gold mines of Hispaniola, today Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
In 1648 colonization of The Bahamas began on the north shore of Eleuthera where the adventurers came from Bermuda with religious freedom as the driving force, which they named
“Eleutheria” after the Greek word for Freedom.
The colonists survived on fish, turtle, conch and trade goods they collected from the sea including dye woods, ambergris from whales and items salvaged from wrecks along the coast, and they soon spread out to start today’s settlements in Spanish Wells and Harbour Island.
The late 1700s saw an influx of British Loyalists who were fleeing the new United States of America after losing the Revolutionary War where they had remained loyal to King George, which started plantations with the slaves they brought but failed to recreate the wealth they had in America and most eventually left, leaving their slaves behind.
Today there are any small resorts and guest houses in Eleuthera to choose from, endless miles of white and pink beaches to walk upon, and plenty of kind natives to help you enjoy the endless activities on the island and around the sea.

However, walk up off the beach and into the scrub, things are a little bit different as, tucked behind the dunes, are the crumbling remains of a Club Med resort that Hurricane Floyd flattened in 1999 and never rebuild.
Its concrete foundations, rusted metal, broken walkways, and old stone walls slowly disappear into the wild vegetation.
Somewhere in the ruins of a site office, architectural blueprints for a resort redevelopment that never happened are reportedly still scattered around.
Not by chance the place is “for sale” and “about to be redeveloped” for about 25 years.

There’s also a fun fact about the resort’s name.
The land was originally owned by a French nobleman, Count Alfred de Marigny, who named it “French Leave” after the expression for disappearing without a goodbye. He was later deported from the Bahamas under dramatic circumstances, meaning he was literally forced to make a French Leave from his own property!
Locals still call this “Club Med Beach” even though the resort has been gone for over two decades, and sailors anchoring at Governor’s Harbour make the walk over regularly and, despite It’s not a regular tourist attraction, it is a big part of the appeal.
The site can either be accessed by a short walk from French Leave Beach, or by parking at the end of the former driveway which can be accessed from Banks Road.
From the beach walk up off the sand into the low vegetation and the remnants of walkways, walls, and foundations become visible.