Nassau

Here we are in Nassau. We arrived Friday Jan. 13 after traveling overnight from our anchorage near Belle Is. in Miami off South Beach. We raised anchor at 4 a.m. and arrived Nassau around 9 a.m. I believe. We requested permission to enter the harbor from Nassau Harbor Control and headed past the cruise ship docks to our slip at Nassau Harbor Club marina. The dock master here is know as St. Peter the Turtle Man of Nassau. He attempts to save the endangered sea turtles in the area.

I am still on info overload and will probably continue to be throughout this trip as I am trying to learn all the navigation tasks as well as the cruising tasks and then the info about our locations and what to see and do. It is a bit overwhelming.

Yesterday we walked to the market under the bridge(which leads across to Paradise Is. and the Atlantis Resort) where there are rows of "shacks" selling the famous Conch salad and fritters as well as typical American fare. There are also vegetable vendors selling the most common veggies such as green peppers, onions, tomatoes, hot peppers, limes all the required ingredients for conch salad. There are also tables where men gather to play dominos and shacks where vendors cut up conch to sell. The area of town that I have seen so far is pretty dirty and trash strewn with tons of potholes on the streets, but the people are very friendly and colorful. We had lunch at "Doc Sands" shack which we chose since it was crowded with locals and the conch salad was excellent. We also had Kalik beer which is a local beer that was really pretty good. Then we walked down to another marina to have dinner with friends Bert and Maria Elena on "Not so Interim". They invited us to a wonderful lamb dinner and a lot of good conversation and wine. Maria Elena used to own a restaurant in Venezuela

Today we will move Spunky to an anchorage as it is expensive to stay here too long. The winds are high so it will be a challenge to get out of here and find a spot in the harbor to anchor. We are waiting for slack tide to try and avoid the current. We are hoping the wind dies down soon so we can leave and head for Allan's Cay our first stop. Allan's Cay is made up of 3 cays, Allan's, Leaf and SW Allan's. It is here on Leaf Cay where the rock iguanas live and come out to greet the cruisers as they land on the beaches.

John got us out of the marina with no problems. The current did push us around but he has a good feel for Spunky now and has become an expert at backing out of slips.

We then circled and circled looking for a place to anchor. The first choice anchorage was full and we are always concerned about being too close to someone. It sits between the cruise ship dock and the bridge where large commercial vessels unload. We couldn't be in the way of either and the one open spot had an obstruction showing on the chart. We dropped anchor once and changed our minds. We finally gave up on the area West of the bridge and moved East to an area near what is rumored to be Lisa Marie Presley's home. Once there we dropped the anchor again and found ourselves to be very close to the channel and lots of boat traffic so we raised our anchor once again and decided to go back to the western site as it is the only place close to a dinghy landing for Moose. We continued to circle and finally settled on a spot after much discussion and indecision. Deciding where to drop our anchor in a crowded anchorage is very stressful and creates lots of tension. John and I both seem to see different things that concern us. We did finally get situated and sat back to let the dust settle so to speak.