Nassau

Doug and I always try and get some stuff done around the boat each day so the maintenance doesn't get ahead of us - all play and no work doesn't cut it even when you are in a beautiful place like Nassau. So yesterday morning was a laundry day for me and Doug tried to line up a guy to service our watermaker which is being finicky and making water that is too high in saline. Doug has already changed all the filters and flushed and re-flushed the system - as great as Doug is with keeping everything running smoothly, sometimes you have to call in a professional. Hopefully the guy can fit us in today although this is a big holiday weekend coming up in Nassau - we don't want to make our way to the more remote islands of the Exumas without our watermaker!!

So after accomplishing what we could, we set out with Stephanie and Bob from September Song to explore more of Nassau. How do you visit Nassau without experiencing Atlantis at least once?? It was pretty unbelievable - especially the aquarium which contained huge manta and sting rays, large jacks, yellowtail snappers, barracudas and even a shark or two!! That was the highlight both inside the resort and out - the rest was just a little too much of everything - too many people, too ostentatious, too big, too expensive, and too commercialized. I guess we've changed a fair amount these last seven months of living a simpler life on the boat - I'd take anchoring out off some deserted beach over a vacation like that any day!!!

Atlantis

The Shark in the Aquarium

Rays chasing fish

Big Manta Ray

The marina at Atlantis

Instead of staying there for lunch, we unanimously decided to head back to Potter's Cay for more fresh conch at Tall Boy's Conch Stand. The cold Kalik and conch sitting outside on picnic tables were a welcome Bahamian treat after the more contrived atmosphere of Atlantis.

Tall Boy's Conch Stand

After re-fueling, we set off to explore more of the downtown area - first stop was the Bahamian rum cake factory where we sampled not only different flavors of rum cake but different flavors of rum too! Good stuff - Bob and Stephanie bought several of the rum cakes, one of which they even shared with the gang back at the pool that afternoon - thanks guys!! From there it was on to the Bacardi store - can you ever have too much rum???? I think not! We grabbed a couple bottles for the rum collection - a coconut and a rum liqueur while Bob picked up some more spiced rum!! We're still not down to the land of the really inexpensive rum yet so we held off on stocking up.

The Bacardi Store ... no way we could walk by here and not stop

We passed the Supreme Court and government buildings again which are a beautiful pink with green shutters - now maybe I could work in a place like that!! I bet down here they wouldn't even care if someone inhaled - hypothetically speaking of course!

Bahamas Supreme Court

A bunch more shops were open yesterday but if we can't eat or drink it, we really have no more room on the boat so we headed back to the boat after finding a cab!!

Once again a party at the pool developed - since we are docksides, we can't just jump off the back of the boat to cool down so luckily there is a nice pool at the marina! The rum cake was followed by some fried chicken from KFC that Bob and Doug were great enough to go get! This afternoon we have all decided to hit happy hour at the Poop Deck (it's a little bar at the next marina over) - after a day of work on the boat, I'm sure we'll be ready when that conch shell blows this evening!!

Bob and Tammy deep in conversation

The gang at poolside