Qualla: Ragged Island, Bahamas

Ragged Island, Bahamas: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Seventy-two people lived on Ragged Island when the census takers came in 2010. That number, already barely enough to fill a school bus, represented the tail end of a decline that began when the salt industry collapsed decades earlier. The Lucayan people had called these islands Utiaquia - 'western hutia land' - after the stocky rodents that once scurried through the scrub. Spanish sailors renamed them Islas de Arena, sand islands, which was accurate enough. But the English name stuck: Ragged Island, part of a crescent-shaped chain stretching over 180 kilometers through the southern Bahamas, its cays carrying names like Raccoon Cay, Hog Cay, and Double-Breasted Cay. It is a place where geography enforces solitude and where solitude has shaped everything.

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Ragged Island, Bahamas: Names Carved in the Rock

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Duncan Town is the only settlement in the entire Ragged Island chain. It sits within a bay of shallow water on the main island, a cluster of homes, a small harbor, a lighthouse, and an airstrip. A tower on the island's southern end is visible to ships transiting the Old Bahama Ch...

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Ragged Island, Bahamas: Salt, Silence, and Leaving

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The salt pans once gave Ragged Island its economy. Salt raking peaked in the 1930s, when workers harvested the crystallized brine from shallow evaporation ponds and shipped it north. As the industry declined, so did the population. Families drifted toward New Providence, Grand Ba...

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Ragged Island, Bahamas: Irma's Verdict

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On September 8, 2017, Hurricane Irma struck Duncan Town head-on. Irma had peaked as a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded, but had weakened to Category 4 with 150 mph winds by the time its eye pas...

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Ragged Island, Bahamas: Rebuilding by Sunlight

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The solar farm eventually materialized. Construction began in December 2019, and by early February 2020 the solar field was essentially complete, with a battery storage system designed to supply at least 90 percent of the island's energy needs. For a place that had relied on expe...

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Ragged Island, Bahamas: The Private Island Next Door

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Just across the water from Ragged Island sits Little Ragged Island - 730 acres of privately owned land that was listed for sale in March 2021. The listing, reported by CNN, offered the kind of fantasy that real estate agents trade in: your own Bahamian island, white sand, turquoi...

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