Club Med Ruins in Governor’s Harbour

Most people come to French Leave Beach for the water, which is an entirely reasonable decision. The 1.2-mile crescent of pink sand on Eleuthera’s Atlantic coast is the kind of place that makes people question all their other vacation choices. But walk up off the beach and into the scrub, and things get interesting fast.

Tucked behind the dunes are the crumbling remains of a Club Med resort that Hurricane Floyd flattened in 1999 and nobody ever bothered to rebuild. Concrete foundations, rusted metal, broken walkways, and old stone walls slowly disappear into the vegetation. Somewhere in the ruins of a site office, architectural blueprints for a resort redevelopment that never happened are reportedly still scattered on the floor. The place has been “for sale” and “about to be redeveloped” for roughly 25 years now.

There’s also a fun bit of trivia baked into the name. The land was originally owned by a French nobleman named 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. You can’t make that up.

Locals still call this “Club Med Beach” even though the resort has been gone for over two decades. Sailors anchoring at Governor’s Harbour make the walk over regularly. It’s not a polished attraction in any way, which is honestly a big part of the appeal.