Nassau to Miami

Dinner aboard Adventures while in Nassau

Finally!  The weather cleared!  Departing Nassau on Tuesday the 17th, we cruised 5 hours through the deep deep  Tongue of the Ocean to Frazier Hog Cay.  We grabbed a mooring ball after attempting to anchor in the swift current and knowing the holding is considered 'poor' in this area because there is too much grass.    We quickly settled in, getting ready for the long haul the next day.     

Leaving Nassau in our wake

Sunrise off Chubb Cay

Up before first light, we pulled out on Wednesday as the sun rose behind us.  Cruising through the much more shallow, northern part of the Great Bahama Bank, (10 - 20 feet), I gave up trying to fish and focused instead on the beautiful water.  

Deep water (dark) and then shallow (light color)

Twelve hours later and very tired, we pulled into Bimini Sands Marina for another night of peaceful sleep.....We could not find good places to anchor...... so we pay the going rates...Which are actually not bad at $1 per foot.

The USA is in sight!  Miami Beach just ahead of us!

Ugh, sharing the channel with big freighters & barges at Miami

Departing Govt' Cut in the early AM

Seaplane came in behind us at the fuel dock! 

Thursday, up at dawn again, another long day, this time in the Straits of Florida in the North Atlantic Ocean.  After crossing the Gulf Stream, 












we dropped the anchor below Miami Beach in Government Cut, outside of No Name Harbor.  We paused only to fuel up at Admiral Oil’s dock (off Rickenbacker Marina off the Rickenbacker Causeway) where a fuel truck with a VERY LONG hose pumped the diesel into our boat.  Imagine getting excited at $4.17 a gallon!  Taking in 759 gallons, we actually smiled at the bill.......after having to pay over $6 a couple of times (and NO, we never filled Finally Fun at those rates!!) No matter, it is still an OUCH.  

The lighthouse in the early morning light at Government Cut, heading out to Marathon

The lighthouse is beautiful as we get closer and closer!

These are houses out in the water on stilts off Miami

Our phone call to the USA Customs and Immigration, requesting clearance back into the USA for us and for Finally Fun went smoothly...gotta love the Local Boater Option (LBO) process.  The couple of hours we spent filling out paperwork was so worth it before we cruised out of USA waters to the Bahamas in 2009.   We had to pass a background check and appear in person before a US Immigration Officer in Miami before being granted LBO clearance.  All of Finally Fun’s documents were also examined carefully.  So, now instead of having to appear personally in front of US Customs & Immigration offices (usually TWO different places!) which means finding a marina to tuck into and then a taxi or rental car and a LOT of time, we only have to make a phone call.  All documents are on file and we have specific ID numbers for each of us and one for the boat. 

This LBO worked for us as we cleared back into the USA from Canada, from the Bahamas twice and into Puerto Rico, the Spanish Virgin Islands and numerous times as we cruised back and forth between the British Virgin Islands into the US Virgin Islands.  Can’t image the hassle without the LBO!

Secure at Marathon Key.  Only thing we caught along the way was a fish pot & buoy which got trapped on our stabilizer til we fished it out

Goofing Off in Nassau

Nassau celebrating the Queen of England

Disappointed in not being able to get to the USA, but making the best of being stuck in Nassau due to adverse weather, I grabbed the guidebooks and local tourist information, scouring them carefully for Where to Go and What to Do.   I know - some of you reading this blog must think we are crazy, complaining about being STUCK in the Bahamas and in the big tourist town of Nassau - a dream come true for many! 

More of the Queen of England

With Robin & Jim from the DeFever Adventures as playmates, off we went, map in hand, to see what we could see.   OMG we walked and walked for two days, just looking around, til the blisters got the best of some of us. Walking from our marina, we went up East Street, and all around the ‘interior’, not seeing much.  

Government Building

The second day, we walked for godzillion miles it seemed, from the marina down East Bay Street to West Bay Street all the way to the Historic Fish Fry section.  Many, many miles! 

We stopped at Potter’s Cay, a tiny slice of land under the Paradise Island Bridge.  


Ah, my kind of place....the locals hang here and work here.  The real deal, not the cruise ship crowds and crap.  Rag tag shanties, lined up side by side, are manned by locals peddling their wares to other locals.....fresh fish, cold beers, fruits, vegetables and stuff.  The mail boats come in here, tugs and trawlers hauling goods tie up here and workmen pound away making repairs to the work horse ships. 

Dried conch for sale- we passed on this

We stood for nearly an hour, in awe, as we watched men loading a huge engine onto one of the boats.

Trying to squeeze that boat in between these other two boats

Engine swinging over everyone's head!

They had to climb aboard a huge unoccupied barge, untying it partially and swinging it out into the harbor to make room for the boat that was to pick up the engine. 

Crane operator

THEN, the exciting part as they tried to pick up the engine with the cable and swing it over onto and into the boat. Scary stuff.  No OSCHA nor any work rules here...Note my photos of the cable - rusted and already partially broken through.  

Note the fraying steel cable, also rusty

Look - the pin is only partially through!

THEN, note the shackle holding it - note the pin is only partially through.  We feared for their lives should it snap.  We also stayed well out of the way!!!  

Market at Potters Cay

My favorite - the vegetable markets.  A darling little boy excitedly showed us his Mother or Grandmother’s vegetables and proudly displayed the land crabs for sale.  Of course, as we passed back through the area, we purchased from him.  He struggled mightily to get the math right, counting my bananas twice, while Mom or Grandma patiently helped him.  She made him make change for me.  I loved every moment of this experience and loved this child!  These are the experiences I will treasure forever.

Look at the face & eyes on this crab!

Limping a bit, we blew past the shops Built for the Cruise Ship Crowds  and the Straw Market loaded with trinkets and I swear, stuff Made in China, stopping finally for cokes at some restaurant overlooking the madness of the cruise ship crowds frantically trying to purchase Duty Free Stuff.  Amazing how one can salivate when one thinks they are getting ‘a deal’.  Makes me sick.  Every place that has a cruise ship coming in has the very same stores and the very same spiels --Come In Come In Very Good Deal...Yeah, one better know what one is shopping for and how much it really costs!!  

We can spot the cruise ship crowd easily ---- pasty white skins or lobster red over top of the pasty white.  No one tries to entice us into the stores anymore.  I think we are too tanned to be mistaken for a Cruise Ship Big Spender.  We are clearly Boaters On A Budget, tanned,  but with sun bleached hair that is too straggly long.  At least we don’t wear SOCKS with our sandals.

Andy, Sharon, Jim & Robin

Ending up at the Historic Fish Fry area, we enjoyed a great meal and especially relished the sitting down part.  Wishing for the famous PainKiller of the British Virgin Islands, we instead settled for beer and wine to numb our feet.  Taxi back to the marina!!!

Goofing off

NOT our idea of fun

Love it.  Robin and Jim are game for anything.  Day Three of Being Stuck in Nassau, we, now MUCH smarter, taking a taxi over to Paradise Island to the famous Atlantis Resort to check it out. 




Andy & I spent a number of days at this unbelievable resort, thanks to Novartis and sales award meetings, but the place never ceases to amaze!  Security is tight and one can't go many places without paying $40 - $125 or so for various tickets to get you in. 

The casino is open to everyone and so is the Marina Village, where we wandered for hours, checking out the mega yachts and grabbing a burger for lunch while the rains came.   We snuck around where we could without paying, gawking just like the cruise ship passengers.

Huge blue and white sphere

There are a number of fabulous blown glass fixtures throughout the resort done by Dale Chihuly.  If one has never seen his work, make it a mission.  Distinctive and ever so beautiful.  Funny, Robin and I both thought that all his works of art could use a little dusting......

Always my favorite

Wow and more Wow

View of some of the mega yachts at the marina 

Longer view into the Atlantis Marina

Jim and Andy on an ice cream bench - their favorite spot

This is why we ate a burger at Johnnie Rockets - $$$$ bad enough

The place is amazing - a Must See

Peeking between two mega yachts

Some have to work while owners play here.  He could get a job washing windows in NYC.

Over at the interior beach area - little bar and grill

Andy & Jim watching the crowds pass by

View of main building from the rear

Nice!!

Suitable for framing!  A wall hanging.

LOVE all the decor!! 

In the taxi/limo parking area.

Tired, we headed back to the boats to rest up for another day.  Weather is such that there is no way we can depart until this coming Tuesday, four days from now. 

Nassau, New Providence Island, Bahamas

14 feet of water - so clear underway

Up at 6:00 on Wednesday, April 11, excited to be underway to Nassau, we had to piddle around for a couple of hours or more, waiting for the sun to rise higher in the sky so we could pick our way back out through the rocks and coral heads to deeper safer water.  The waters here are beautiful because it is so shallow!!!  

The view all day long underway - photo taken from the flybridge!!!!

The water is also very still today, no wind nor waves, making it so easy to see to the bottom.  We never saw any sign of life while underway - just spotty soft corals gently waving under the water and as we got closer to Nassau, began seeing those puffy coral colored starfish I love so much.

Cruising through Nassau Harbor

Pulling into Nassau in the late afternoon was uneventful, as was getting into a slip at the Nassau Yacht Haven Marina.  This harbor is crowded, busy, has strong currents and anchoring is not advised as holding is terrible....hence, the marina choice....Not much choice!

Surprise!  Who knocked on our hull shortly after we tied up but Jim & Robin Roberts from Adventures, a DeFever 49 that we’d met at Warderick Cay.  We had a good time catching up and discussing the Not So Good weather headed our way.

Finally Fun is in this mess off to the left

Stuck now in Nassau it appears we’ll be here nearly a week as the winds howl and seas build to far higher than we want to tackle.  We really tried to rationalize trying to make it to Bimini - a two day trip from here -  and hunkering down there for a few days while this front passes through.  

Atlantis Resort in the background

As much as we want to be home, and feeling very much like the horse that sees the barn, we finally decided we were taking a chance and a risk if we did attempt ‘to beat the storm’.   

Departing here, we’d have to travel 40 (5 hours) nautical miles to Chubb Cay,  another dot of an island out in the middle of the Great Bahama Bank --- all in very very shallow water.  The winds adversely affect the Bank, driving big waves and making the water even more shallow as it blows the water across the Bank.  We’d have to anchor or perhaps be lucky enough to grab a mooring ball at Chubb Cay, risking getting stuck there for a week if the weather arrived only a few hours early.  Given the weather and with so many boats traversing to/from Florida this time of year, I was also concerned that once we arrived at Chubb, we might find ourselves with ‘no room at the inn‘ -- a over crowded anchorage in really bad bad blowing weather is not where we’d want to be.  

From Chubb, it is another 80-90 NM (10 to 12 hours underway) to Bimini, continuing across the Bank.  We’d face the strong possibility that we’d get hit by the weather rolling in a bit early with no place to hunker down out of it and/or get stuck out in the dark squalls, a very bad thing with all the shallows and reefs.  The race across the Banks to beat the storms could become very uncomfortable and potentially dangerous if the weather arrived a bit early or arrived stronger than predicted. 

Time to play Chicken....pooooo.