Lucayoneque is a constituent republic of Lucaya Commonwealth.
| Lucayoneque Republic | |
|---|---|
| Archipelago of the Abaco Islands | |
| Constituent Republic of Vekllei | |
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| Part of the Lucaya Commonwealth | |
| Accession | 1930, as part of the Alford Agreement |
| Area | 2,009 km² |
| Capital | Harbour Town |
| Languages | English, Lucayan |
| Population | 120,022 |
The Lucayoneque Republic is a constituent republic of Vekllei in the northernmost Lucayan archipelago, a large island group comprising two main islands and a long chain of cays fringing a 160-kilometre natural sound. The protected waters of the Sea of Abaco, between the main island and its offshore cays, make some of the most sheltered sailing in the western Atlantic, which has defined the republic’s character since European settlement and continues to do so.
The English loyalists who arrived after the American Revolution – royalists unwilling to live under the new republic, many of them from the Carolinas – established the boat-building tradition that persists in the republic’s smaller cay communities today. Man-O-War Cay, accessible by ferry from Harbour Town, maintains a functioning boatyard building wooden craft using techniques largely unchanged since the 18th Century. The cay is dry by longstanding custom and very quiet. Hope Town, on the nearby Elbow Cay, has one of the few manned lighthouses in the Commonwealth – a candy-striped tower built in 1864 whose keepers still cycle the light each evening. The Lighthouse Service has tried twice to automate it to strong opposition, and the republic’s parliament has supported its continued manual operation.
Harbour Town, the capital, is a moderate-sized city on the main island’s central east coast with a good deep-water port serving as the administrative and commercial hub for the republic’s outlying cays. The marina and boatyard district is its most characteristic feature – work boats, pleasure craft and Commonwealth maritime services vessels all share the harbour. The city has grown considerably under federalisation and now has a university campus, a regional hospital and rail connections north and south along the main island.
The Abaco National Park in the south of the republic protects the breeding grounds of the Abaco parrot, a subspecies found nowhere else, and extensive pine forest. The park is administered by the Ministry of Landscape and receives modest visitor numbers. Bone-fishing in the Abaco shallows is the republic’s most famous recreational offering for visitors, and is conducted almost entirely from local wooden skiffs.
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Climate
Subtropical with a pleasant dry season from October through April. The wet season, May through September, includes hurricane risk. The Sea of Abaco moderates temperature on the cay communities.
Public Holidays
- New Year’s Day 1 Jan
- Republic Day 15 Feb
- Good Friday
- Easter Monday
- Whit Monday
- Commonwealth Day 1 May
- Emancipation Day 1st Mon/Aug
- Discovery Day 12 Oct
- Christmas Day 25 Dec
- Boxing Day 26 Dec
- Man-O-War Cay Boatyard: Traditional wooden boat building facility on a small cay, continuing 18th-century construction techniques.
- Hope Town Lighthouse: Rare manned lighthouse in Commonwealth Lucaya, built 1864, maintained by the Hope Town community.
- Abaco National Park: Protected pine forest and wetland reserve in the south of the republic, home to the endemic Abaco parrot.
- Harbour Town Marina: The republic’s main commercial and pleasure marina, hub of boat traffic in the northern Lucayan archipelago.
- Treasure Cay: Large beach cay with calm turquoise waters and extensive sandbars accessible by ferry.
- Marsh Harbour Railway Main line serving the commercial hub of Kipri.
- Hope Town Lighthouse Express Scenic tramway serving the iconic Elbow Cay lighthouse.