Salt Salinas and Windmill Ruins

Much of Salt Cay's interior is taken up by the shallow saline ponds that formed the basis of its economy for nearly three centuries. The network of low stone walls, channels, sluice gates, and canal earthworks that controlled the water flow between the ponds and the sea is still largely intact, giving the island an engineered, patchwork quality from above. Nine windmills once pumped water through the system; the stone foundations and partial structures of several still stand.

Walking through the salinas is free and gives a vivid sense of the industrial scale of what was once here. The low walls and the flat landscape create a strange, open atmosphere — not quite ruins, not quite wilderness, but something in between. Pink flamingos occasionally visit the ponds. Bring sunscreen: there is no shade.

things to do sight
A story
At its peak in the 19th century, Salt Cay was producing up to a million bushels of salt a year, most of it exported to the cod-fishing ports of New England and Newfoundland where it was used to preserve the catch. The salt rakers who worked the ponds were brought from Bermuda and the Bahamas; their descendants still make up most of the island's tiny permanent population. The collapse came not gradually but suddenly: industrially produced rock salt from other sources made Salt Cay's hand-raked product uncompetitive by the 1960s.