Waking up before sunrise is always a majestic experience. We had our work cut out for us today, May 4th. Our hurdle was to cross the Great Bahama Bank, a 56 nautical mile passage in predominantly 20 feet of water or less. We left the anchorage about an hour after first light and began our journey over a shallow, turquoise aquatic desert. We followed the north cat cay passage making our way towards the northwest shoal marker that leads to “the tongue of the ocean”-a deep drop off on the edge of the bank. For the majority of the day we had steady winds at our aft making 6-7 knots under sail on a deep broad reach. The water seemed pretty lifeless with the exception of a few patches of coral so fishing was a fruitless endeavor. After about 7 hours or so of sailing our winds began to fade, so we rolled up the sails and finished the last stretch under motor.

Early in the day we decided that we wouldn’t venture into the deeper waters until first light the following morning, which afforded us the unique opportunity to drop anchor in 16 feet of water with no land to be seen. What a feeling! Its one of the most surreal experiences I think any of us has ever had. We made sure that we were far enough out of any of the main passages through the bank and settled in for the night. We made a few rum cocktails and polished off our expensive Kaliks, the local Bahamian beer we purchased in North Bimini, and spent the rest of the night star gazing in the most expansive anchorage imaginable.

Over night we kept our running and courtesy lights on in lieu of a mooring light because we didn’t want to be mistaken for a channel marker. Nonetheless, the bizarre nature of our situation struck Debs with a bit of paranoia in the middle of the night as she frantically looked through binoculars worried that boats on their passage might run into us. No one could blame her since the experience was a new one for us all, but it did afford us comedic relief as she recounted her night watch in the morning.

The following day we made way for Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas and the main city on the island of New Providence. Although the destination was never high on our list as its one of the largest cruise ship destinations in the world, we had read enough to know that if you stayed out of the downtown west end and hung on East Bay Road you could get a lot of local color and all the provisions we would need to carry us on down through the Exumas. Our cruising guide did not let us down! We elected to stay at the blue collar Nassau Yacht Haven right on the other side of the commercial dock and fish stalls. We were lucky and got put up on a T-dock so as to avoid maneuvering the Fille through the maze of slips packed into this little marina.

The spot turned out to be perfect. On the property was a scuba diving company and a famous bar and restaurant within the cruising community called The Poop Deck. After we got our dock lines secured and shore power connected we headed in to book a dive for the next day and get some cold beers and fresh fish at our new spot. Liz and I took it easy into the evening because we had an early morning departure the following day and hung boat side reading up on weather patterns and plotting our next course south.

On the 6th we awoke to blue skies and perfect temperatures ready to go explore some of the aquatic wonderland the Bahamas had to offer. We quickly befriended our dive staff on the way out, getting info on some of the things to expect under water and tips of where to provision in the afternoon. We arrived at our first stop about 9:30 in the morning to dive The Lost Blue Hole, blue holes being a surprisingly common phenomenon around these parts. Andros Island, to our west, even has some inland blue hole, which I here are pretty unreal. It had been a couple of years since Liz and I last dove and it felt great to be back in the water. We descended upon some Caribbean reef sharks swimming gracefully on the ocean floor around the rim of the hole. Within the hole itself I wouldn’t say was much to write home about, besides the occasional shark that would swim into the center to take a lap or two. The biggest issue is that as you descend, the light spectrum diminishes and the hole expands, so the algae that live with corals can’t photosynthesize well. When we reached our max depth of about 90ft. you almost had to be on top of the wall to get a good look at what was living down there. Regardless, it was well worth the cost of the trip to check out this unique aquatic topographical formation.

Our second dive was pretty shallow in about 30 ft. of water. We got to see a plethora of nurse sharks, a few of the invasive lionfish that our decimating the reefs in and around the Bahamas, and many of the familiar species of marine life that we spent years educating people about in the Virgin Islands. After we ascended we headed on back to our slip to meet the Beckers for a delicious lunch of whole fried snapper, rice ‘n’ peas and plantains at The Poop Deck before starting our provisioning around town. Tom and Deb had spent the morning giving the boat a much needed scrub down- an incessant necessity of the cruising lifestyle- and she was sparkling yet again. With bellies full we decided to divide and conquer. Liz and I headed into the belly of the beast, the cruise ship dock, to get a polarized filter for her camera, and T& D went across the street to the marine store to look for anything we may have forgotten.

Liz and I hopped in one of the local public jitneys (small local buses) and caught a ride downtown to the main stretch of storefronts, grabbed our filter and were out of there within ½ an hour. I was pretty impressed with how efficient the trip was and how we were able to ride round trip for under $5 combined. We made it back to the boat and headed out with Deb for food and libations. This also turned out to be an incredibly fruitful and yet again, surprisingly affordable venture, and even we even had the good fortune of catching a taxi back with all of our newly acquired goods, without which we would have been up shits creek with a turd for a paddle.

We made it back swiftly and promptly stowed our rations before venturing out for an evening at the famous Atlantis resort. We know it’s touristy, but such a gaudy salmon palace necessitates a visit. It gave us a reason to dress up a bit, hell I even wore shoes for the first time in a month. As expected, the place looks better from a distance. It was a cruise ship meets Vegas, sort of our cup of tea, gambling and what not, but not really due to the sheeple nature of it all. We did however find a nice place to dine on the water and strolled along the piers checking out some of the nicest yachts in the world before being taken by a couple of slot machines and overpriced drinks. I think we were in and out of the casino in less than an hour, a record for the 4 of us. After that we all agreed that we really liked our part of town much better and wanted to make our way back for a night cap and some shut eye to get us prepped for our journey into what we hear is the most beautiful part of this island chain- The Exumas. All that being said, Nassau was great. It gave us just what we needed in the right amount of time for the right price. It’s not some place I have the dying urge to come back to, but if I were in these waters again I certainly wouldn’t shy away.