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.

Athol Island was and still is used as a quarantine island, most recently in the early 90’s during the Haitian influx to The Bahamas. Many who were quarantined on Athol lost their lives trying to swim the ½ mile to Paradise Island.  For us, it was a pleasant refuge from the wind and waves and offered us a chance to snorkel a wreck. Some years ago a vintage WWII landing craft used by Bahamians as a cargo transport vessel, began to sink off Athol’s eastern tip. The crew ran it into shallower water, removing what cargo they could salvage. The bow section sits in 5 ft while the stern rests in 11 ft and allows for an easy snorkel. The cruise ships send out hoards in large catamarans and a couple of dive vessels bring snorkelers out a few times a day. We took Bunting over late morning, after Russ made an exploration trip into Nassau Harbor, and had the spot to ourselves. The regular boats feed the fish so we had no shortage of cute yellow stripies swimming along with us.

The creature preps for the lagoon

Catamaran dockage in the plentiful Nassau marinas is limited and calls to several marinas turned up “we’ll put you on the wait list.” A weak cold front was coming through late Monday and that would keep boats in their slips. We moved from Athol into the harbor, figuring the south side of Paradise Island would offer wind protection. Problem was our stern would be very close to the channel where boats of all shapes and sizes come and go all day.  Getting it right took three tries and once happy with our spot, the guys dropped our second anchor in using the dinghy.  The wind was predicted to blow 25kts, gusting the 30+; two anchors was a must. Remember, the holding is generally not great.

Ok, the anchors are in and who arrives but that same sailboat from Chub Cay; almost too close and again we cringed as the anchor went in, dragged, then caught and hardly got a second check.  Later we had to ask another sailboat to move when he popped in to our right, between us and a boat who had been anchored when we arrived. Early Tuesday several air horn blasts from another boat caused a look-see from the group as Mr. What a cute little anchor was dragging from his spot further up after we kicked him out. The rest of us stayed put but the gusting wind moved our unlucky neighbor once more.

A daring dinghy ride across the harbor was mandatory as we needed to satisfy our internet/email needs and check with the chosen marina in person about a slip Wed night. Provisions would be good too; the fridge and freezer suffered greatly from the ransacking of 3 of us on board for almost two weeks.

Wi-fi was obtained at Starbucks for the cost of a $3 coffee, food at the City Market and a vague promise from Peter at Nassau Harbor Club (one of the newer marinas) to give us the next available slip; call him Wed at 11am. “Call” meant on the VHF, good thing as we still had no phone access.