The Angler’s Lament

When fire claimed The Compleat Angler Hotel and Bar on Bimini, the first of the Bahamas’ Islands west of Miami, it also consumed long time owner and gentleman Julius Brown. Anyone who had the opportunity to experience the hotel and Julius’ hospitality, as I did, knew it was far more than a cheap place to stay.

In its heyday it was a favorite of British royalty, American jet setters, and rum runners during prohibition.

During the 1930’s the Angler was the home away from home of Ernest Hemingway. He came to fish giant Marlin, drink, shoot pigeons and drink more. He wrote To Have and Have Not and started Islands in the Stream. He stayed in room #1 on the main floor, appropriately right across from the bar. The room later became dedicated to Papa. On the wall hung hundreds of obligatory faded and salt-stained photos with him next to trophy marlin along with countless handwritten notes and quotations.

I always found the notes and quotations to be the real trophies.

It’s where the press went to find Colorado Senator and presidential candidate, Gary Hart, after he told them, “I have nothing to hide,” and they discovered he actually did; his presidential prospects were gone with the flash of a camera as a beautiful woman who was not his wife was on his arm. Their photo was above the bar, and I liked it far more than any with Hemingway and a giant dead fish.

Below Gary and his bimbo, tacked to the bar wall, was a piece of paper with all the guides’ names and numbers written down. Julius didn’t need it though, he knew the numbers by heart and they would be waiting the next morning across Kings Highway (which was more like a dirt driveway) at the marina to hit the flats.

It had a small lobby of weathered wood planks and overhead fans like you see in the movie, Casablanca. I still recall the inimitable sound of my friend Erik’s rod tip snapping in the blades as we entered the hotel after a long day’s fish. He cursed violently, I laughed nonstop and the drunk islanders at the bar just stared. Later I helped him drown his anger down in the hotel bar playing a game of ring toss, reading the Hemingway letters on the wall and losing count of our rum and Kaliks.

It is the place I stayed when I caught my first bonefish.

It wasn’t the fanciest on the island, but there were certainly none better. It’s glory days were gone. The hotel, showing it’s age, had become a pair of old leather shoes. The shine long been off, but the feeling never more comfortable. It was a fine and inexpensive place to stay while fishing for bones. The Kalik always cold and the rum like rum anywhere, devastatingly good. The bartenders downstairs kept track of your tab to the penny for the entire week strictly from memory.

“Room seven? Ya mon, I’m sure. Your fren’ what lost his tip ‘n you 23.”

It was cheap. It was dog-eared. Floors creaked and groaned with every step, more so when the Reggae bands drew Alice Town folk on the weekends. It was the furthest things from a five star Orvis endorsed outfit I have ever had the joy of staying at. It was beautiful. And I shall miss it greatly.