Exumas at Last!

Our last post had us waiting out Hurricane Paloma in Nassau. This post finds us in the Exuma Land and Sea Park headquarters on Wardwick Wells cay and it's beautiful.

As we were 'stuck' in Nassau now awaiting Jim's flight on Wednesday we did the mandatory tourist thing and went across the bridge to Paradise Island where the Atlantis Resort is. It's a huge pink monstrosity out in the middle of these flat islands. You can see it for miles before you see land as you sail toward New Providence Island. It's lavish and creatively designed around a large (& empty) casino (Jan won $10 and treated us to lunch) and an extremely large seawater aquarium. We could have docked in their marina for a mere $250 per day along side the 150' mega yachts like we saw at the Ft. Lauderdale boat show. We asked several of the workers about the lack of people and they all said, and newspaper accounts supported this, that the economy was having a devastating effect on their business. Several days later, Atlantis announced the layoff of 800 workers. Bummer for the economy down here.

The next day we took the local bus to Cable Beach where Megan and Jeremy will be staying before boarding Mystique the Monday before Thanksgiving. Another set of large resorts and another big casino. We find it curious that Bahamians are not allowed to gamble. That night we cleaned up and went to dinner at Sailor's Choice just down the street - very authentic Bahamian food - we enjoyed grilled and curried/coconut grouper.

Wednesday morning, Nov 12, Swabby Jim flew home and we stopped to load up on diesel before heading SW over the banks to the Exumas. We had heard from another boat that Brown's boatyard was the place to go, with diesel at $3.80/gal (vs. the usual $4.75-5.75). You know how you should pay attention to your first impressions about a place? This fuel dock was run down and dirty. And we later learned that the fuel was also. We took 30 gal. aboard, about half a tank since our last fill-up in Ft. Lauderdale. As we crossed the banks straight into the 15-20kt winds and very large choppy seas, the diesel filter began to fill with water and dirt from Brown's. It ain't easy sticking your head deep into the engine compartment when both it and the outside temperature are hot and the boat is lurching and pitching and sunscreen soaked sweat is dripping into your eyes! But I had to check the "Raycor" fuel filter/water separator about every half hour and in all drained about two-three cups of dirty water during that long day of bashing upwind. From now on we'll check a sample of fuel in a glass jar first, and use a "Bahama Filter" as the fuel is being pumped aboard. You'll appreciate that we took no photos of this particular crossing!

At several points we debated turning around and running downwind back to Nassau, but the prospect of sitting for more days awaiting good weather wasn't exciting. It looked as though we could make the closest point in the Exumas, Ship Channel Cay, just at sundown - so we pressed on knowing that the closer we got to the islands the calmer the seas would become. We found that to be the case and the last hour was the easiest. We dropped anchor in a protected area just off the beach just as it was getting dark and the full moon appeared, and slept very well that night! How wonderful it felt to finally be in the Exumas!!