Wednesday bloomed chilly and since that was the worst of it, we were very happy. A mile walk toward cruise ship territory took us to the Batelco store where a Bahamian sim card was purchased for Russ’s Nokia phone; no can do with an iPhone. Benj picked up a few gifts and as a result of Russ making another personal visit to the marina, timing being everything in this case, we got the much prayed for slip.

Cruise ship area in Nassau

Potter’s Cay is a T-shaped piece of filled land (likely a wharf in years past?) that sticks out a short ways into the harbor. Several produce vendors offer a local buying alternative to the grocery but it’s the food shanties lining the street that brought us as well as locals to Potter’s Cay. Finally local food, as in conch, conch and more conch. Twin Brothers with its small picnic table filled deck overlooking the water was Benj’s choice.  Russ’s conch salad was made fresh on the deck by a young man who clearly could do it in his sleep. Oodles of lime and sour orange juices are squeezed over the diced conch to “cook” it ceviche style.

Food shanty Potter's Cay

Potter's Cay Produce Stands

We ate dinner out too- am I in heaven or what? A very short walk took us to The Poop Deck with its yummy Bahamian style menu choices, reasonable drink prices and friendly service. I was smitten when the waitress said “no problem, darlin’ ”.

In between meals we packed in a full day’s worth of chores. More provisioning, laundry, phone calls, showers, on-line flight check-in for Benj and last-minute emails, even a visit from the local customs surveillance officer checking to be sure we’d cleared in properly. Anyone can raise the flag and not cough up that $300, so I guess random checking at marinas is smart and easy.

Thursday we bid farewell to Benj at Nassau Int’l Airport, arriving at 5:30 a.m. for a 7 o’clock flight that was SOMEHOW 30 mins delayed already when we arrived. How could two weeks end so quickly? The next time we’d see our son would be June 1 after his study abroad in Italy (sud-Tirol/Alps).  Dare I mention that spring break would find him and a few friends in Barcelona?  We admit to a healthy dose of envy.

Again, we hustled our butts off and accomplished a full day’s worth of chores between 6:30 a.m. and 2pm when we had to slip the slip; even then as we fueled up on the outer dock, I continued to finalized the last blog update I’d be doing for days. Wi-fi is never free in The Bahamas; $10 for 24 hrs is typical. Garbage disposal is free when you stay at a marina, but otherwise you pay $3-$5/bag. You can bet we use large garbage bags and as is the custom dump food scraps into the water when we’re traveling between destinations. As much packaging gets discarded when disposal is free; cereal boxes, pasta boxes, etc all go and contents placed in Ziploc bags or Lock ‘n Lock containers.