Another Google search resulted in another version of the song, seemingly much more modern. Here's the link:

http://www.allaroundthisworld.com/songs-caribbean.html

If you scroll down about 3/4 down the page, you'll see a section entitle "Bellamina" and there's a link that you can click to hear their song. In there version, they paint each boat a different color.

The text also mentions, "Author Zora Neale Hurston heard 'Belllamina' when she first arrived in the Bahamas, incorporated it into one of her plays and even made a recording of the song in the '30s." I also came across the same information in her autobiography. So, it seems the song was popular in Nassau back around 1930-ish.

I have also noticed that the folks from the Bahamas sing the song
in the first person, where as "white" versions of the song sing about it in the third person.

There seems quite a few versions of the songs, one of which the singer ends by seemingly singing about his woman "Maise" who drives him crazy and his wanting to paint her bottom black. LOL.

-Rand.