Happy Birthday, Wayne Bumm! We're in Nassau

Happy Birthday, Wayne Bumm! We arrived in Nassau, Bahamas, yesterday afternoon. There are no bathrooms or Internet at our dock, so we walked to Starbucks to post this.

We left Berry Islands Club at 6:30 a.m. yesterday for Nassau. Bum’s Rest, Passages and Dot’s Way were traveling with us. We raised the main sail. SOG was 6.5 knots. Winds were 10 knots. We were motor sailing with 2800 rpms. At one point we were in 9,949 feet of water! Yes, nearly 10,000 feet deep. It was that deep, dark navy blue. So pretty. This was taken as we were leaving Berry Islands Club.

The temperature was only 64, so we were in our peacoats. I had a blanket around my legs. With the wind chill, it was below 60 and cold. Cold if you're moving on the water. As we got closer to the harbor, we saw two cruise ships in the distance heading for Nassau. We were hoping they wouldn’t hold us up from entering the harbor.

At 12:10 p.m., we called Nassau Harbor Patrol to ask permission to enter the harbor. We had to provide the name of our vessel, last port of call, destination and documentation number. We received permission to enter the harbor when we were 1.6 miles out.

As we entered the harbor, we saw five cruise ships, including Ocean of the Seas (a megaship) and the Disney ship. We took video and photos.
There is not a No Wake law here, and boats gun it to get out into the harbor. We’ve never seen anything like it. Our boat is rocking and rolling all over the place. We had to turn Sheet Music around in our slip last night between tides. The current was really moving when we first arrived, so we waited until the tide change. The wakes were splashing water into the cockpit and pushing the dinghy up onto the cooler that’s on the back. We pulled the dinghy up onto the deck using the spinnaker line and a block and fall pulley system that Chuck put together so he can do it himself.

I ran around looking for a phone to no avail. Around 2 p.m., Mo, from S/V Passages, rescued me with her global phone and I called Phillips Sailmakers. After a few calls back and forth, Larry came and picked it up, had it repaired, and returned it about an hour later. We were thrilled with the service. They were closing at 3:30 p.m. for the weekend, so if he didn’t do it right away, we wouldn’t have had it back until at least Monday. Thanks, Larry, for such great service!

After the sail was returned, Patti and I went to City Market and stocked up on produce. Most prices were very reasonable, except for the water. I bought a case of Aquafina 20 oz. bottles. It was $23.76 for the case! Water is 99 cents a bottle here. They don’t sell it by the case because of the high price. They opened the case, scanned one bottle and entered 24 bottles. Wow! I expected it to be expensive, but not that much! Their grocery stores don’t have prices posted, so you don’t know how much anything is. I picked up a small bag of leftover Valentine’s candy, peanut butter hearts, marked 50 percent off. But it rang up $9.99, marked down to $5 so I told them to take it off. That was no bargain!

Passages left us this morning. We had a good time with George, Mo and Carly. Their daughter, Katie, joined them yesterday. We hope to meet up with them in the Exumas.

We are at Texaco Harbour View Marina. We’re right behind a fuel dock that is closed. The gas station at the end of the pier is under renovation, so there are no bathrooms to speak of. We shower on our boat anyway, so we don’t mind. The dock is only $1.50 a foot and includes electric and water. Free water is unusual in the Bahamas, where you usually have metered water and pay by the gallon. It was 60 cents a gallon at Berry Islands Club. Glad we didn’t top off there! We filled all our jerry jugs and our gallon AZ iced tea jugs and added a little bleach to each. They bring water in on an oil tanker barge from Andros. We’ll top off our water tank in the morning before we leave for the Exumas.

We are spending the day in Nassau for Wayne’s birthday and going to dinner tonight, probably to the Poop Deck, a famous restaurant here on the water. I’m hoping to get over to Atlantis to see the walk-through aquarium. We’ll see what the day brings. Chuck and Wayne are putting the jib sail back up this morning before we walk around.

Tomorrow, we’re heading to the Exumas. Not sure if I’ll have Internet, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from us for a few days.