Hello everyone. Here i am at Starbucks trying to catch up on my blog. It is a most beautiful day here, Steve and I are going to explore Atlantis today. We walked from the Green Parrot dinghy dock all the way down the street across the bridge to Paradise Island (Home of Atlantis). Wow now Atlantis is a huge place, it costs 139.00 each to do the water park,  89.00 just to do the beaches and another 40.00 charge just to walk through the aquarium areas. There are so many beautiful structures there and a neat plaza with Johnny Rockets and other little stores. It cost an unbelievable rate just to dock there. Although all the boats there are priced no less than one million. All  you have to do is look at them. And the docks are full. I read it costs 330.00 dollars a night to 25000.00 a night to dock(yes that is 25,000.00). Nassau is a dirty place not friendly and they are trying to get rid of all the anchorages to only marina docks you pay for. The only upscale place is Paradise Island. You dont go out at night alone here. The newspapers have at least one murder reported in them per day, at least they did while we have been here. We have done some work on boat and explored the city in the daytime. There are so many tourists off the cruise ships, they have a lot of shops for them to shop in when they get off the boat. Kim and I were here in Oct of last year on a cruise ship and we had fun. They have the island here they filmed Gilligans island at and the Blue Lagoon if anyone remembers them. Well enough for now i am going to sign off.

March 19 2013 Tuesday

Steve is under the weather today so I am letting him sleep after taking some cold meds and I am going into town with Debbie to Starbucks to get internet so that I can work on my blog and check on facebook. After that we went back to boats picked up Steve and headed for Dunkin Donuts so he could  get online. Starbucks gives you a code for 1 hour of internet and Dunkin Donuts gives you 2 codes good for 30 minutes. The only place I get unlimited is at the Green Parrot Restaurant close to us but it opens later in the evening. I have to buy an appetizer and a drink. I can get it at the marinas here but the cost I paid in the states for a marina was all inclusive, here you pay for water separate, electricity separate and WIFI is usually not free. Some places you pay for garbage which is understandable because you are on an island and they have to burn it or usually a garbage boat takes it away from the island to somewhere else to be disposed of. Not a lot of room on an island. Fresh water is precious on the smaller islands also.

We have so much to be thankful for, I thank my ancestors everyday for their hard work and dedication that makes it possible for us to enjoy all our freedoms.  OK let me get down off my soapbox. We had a wonderful day today Steve is still feeling a little under the weather so I am signing off.

March 18 2013 Monday

Up at 9, anchored up and headed back to Nassau. We had to alert the big catamaran next to us that their boat was right over the anchor and they said they would push us off if we got too close. So I commenced to pulling up the anchor and the French Canadians kept us off their boat until I got it all the way up. We started out into the banks again and discovered that there was not enough wind to sail with. So we motored with the headsail up to help stabilize the bow and hopefully catch the wind when it does blow. We made it through the Yellow Banks where the coral reefs are massive and can  rip a hole in your boat if you hit one. I was on watch standing on the front of the boat and Steve had the GPS that shows us the safest route thru the coral. The sun was beautiful and the waves were average. Steve had to take a break so I piloted the boat up until 3 miles to Nassau Harbor. We saw so many boats headed to the Exumas along our route as we came back to Nassau. The waves picked up as we came into the harbor because the wind has picked up. The Blue Lagoon is on our right as we come back into the harbor. Kim and I went there when we went on our cruise last year. You can have a dolphin encounter there getting into the water with them and interacting with them. It is a beautiful island used in filming the Blue Lagoon and Gilligens Island. Although not many people remember Gilligans Island. Kim and I found a broken down gift shop that was called Gilligen’s gift shop. Ahh those were the days when I couldn’t wait to get home to watch it. Back to the adventure now. We anchored out locked the boat and went down to the Texaco dock so we could see where the grocery store was. We pulled up to the Texaco dock one of the few places to tie up your dinghy in Nassau. Threw our garbage away in the dumpster there and headed to the street. The traffic here is fast dangerous and constantly honking horns. The taxis are getting the tourists to their destinations FAST!!! We finally got a break crossed the street and saw a small mall to our right. The first place we saw was a huge Starbucks, wow we are back in the states, lol. Oh and ( get this ) a Fresh Market with organic food and meats just like in Chattanooga. I bought some red wine garlic vinegar for slaw. And a Dominos Pizza, Dairy Queen ( with a mint oreo frosty, weee). We even found a video store, ahh and McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts and Burger King.  So we feel like we are in the states again. Steve and I were laughing about being in another country eating American junk food. J We went back to the boat with our groceries enjoyed a beautiful sunset. Stay tuned for more, Goodnight!

March 17 2013 Sunday

These pictures are from Bimini. Dont know if i have posted these before but here are some more. 🙂

Good morning everyone! I hope that everyone is enjoying the blog. Steve and I  are having a great time. We took a day today just to hang out by the boat and relax in the breezes and the beautiful sun. We started out with pancakes and ended up with movies and grilled chicken with rice. Not much to write about today so I will post some pics for everyone.

Steve and I decided to go to the Iguana island today and look around. You can see a small partial building on the island our friends said were old ruins. We loaded into our dinghy after eating breakfast and traveled over to the island. There had already been a tourist boat there from Nassau to let tourists see and feed the iguanas. It takes us 5-6 hours to travel from Allens Cays to Nassau and it takes them about 30-60 minutes in a high speed boat.  We got over to the keys and immediately saw several small iguana watching us to see if we would feed them. They let you get pretty close, but I don’t want to get to close because they bite. We walked over the hard rock to get to the ruins area. There were several concrete blocks about 3 foot x 2 feet placed like steps to the building. Once we got there we saw all the graffiti written from hundreds of visitors to the islands. (My grandmother said, “fools names and monkeys faces always appear in public places”) There were several iguanas in the old building, the building looked like it was going to be a store or something at one, time all concrete. The iguana kept an eye on us and did not like it when I tried to feed him raisins. He thought I was throwing stuff at him. J You know it surprising how fast a 1.5 foot iguana can move. I was faster, lol. We got in our dinghy and 3 more boats had shown up at the iguana shore. So we loaded up and just took the dinghy around all the little islands and enjoyed the beautiful water that

got even too thin for our dinghy around some coral reefs. We walked onto the other side of the iguana island and found several conch shells tied together in bunches of 5-6. The islanders that harvest conch must throw the shells out there and I want to find out why they are tied in bunches like that. Stay tuned I will find the answer. After exploring that end we went to the south island where the more pinkish iguanas hung out. They were eating lettuce and carrots from the boaters that had anchored out. (2 boats). I got my snorkeling gear out and started snorkeling around the coral sticking out over the water from the banks. I saw several beautiful reef fish, one small barracuda and a lot of live conch and a bunch of empty shells. Steve was in the dinghy following me around so I would be safe.  I love to snorkel in these beautiful island waters. I haven’t seen any sharks yet and I hope I don’t while I am snorkeling. We went back to the boat and sat outside watched the beautiful horizons and enjoyed the weather. Watched the movie cold mountain and went to sleep in the beautiful Exumas Allens Cays.

Captains Log: Boat holds much better with a Bahamian moore.

Well off to the Allens Cays. We had a pretty good trip with nice sailing winds. Up to 6 MPH. Steve brought us safely into one of the most beautiful places i have seen yet. The water is almost clear and the hues of blue are gorgeous. There were two boats already there and we anchored out and headed to shore. Steve saw that one of our anchors was not setting right so we went back to boat and reset the anchor. We have to use a Bahamian anchor in the Bahamas just to get a good hold. That is with two anchors at a 90 degree parallel to ensure a good hold. If you use just one you could end up a long way from where you started and being slammed into the boat in the same area is not the way i like to meet my boating neighbors. We just cooked supper after that watched a movie and went to bed. Goodnight All!  🙂

Going to the Allens Cays tomorrow, from here it is about a 33 mile trip. That will probably take about 6-7 hours. They are supposed to be so pretty. It is in the Exxumas, and that is supposed to be home to a lot if Dachsund size iguanas that are fed by tourist boats every day. Not much to tell today just getting ready to take off tomorrow. We spent early part of the day working on learning anchor placement. David and Debbie came over for movie night and we had a ball. Well more for tomorrow.

Good Morning! Welcome to Nassau. We are headed to the streets today and the straw market to see what we can see. Ok we took the dinghy to a dock  up by the cruise ship docks. Steve and Debbie and I disembarked and headed into town. We went to the Queen’s staircase looking like tourists lost in mid town with a map open between the three of us, lol. I put some pictures of the Queen’s staircase they are on Day 127.  We left there after checking out the vendors with home made and imported items, then on to the market place by the cruise ship docks. They have a neat store there where we could pick up grocery items, and the straw market which is like a huge flea market. The items are pretty expensive. I bought a hand carved turtle  and we had a wonderful lunch there at the flea market upstairs of BBQ ribs chicken and baked chicken with potato salad and rice/black peas. We wondered thru the rest of the market went to the Bahamian Bank and to the grocery store. Bought way too much and i felt like a weight lifter on the way back home. lol. We made it back to t he dinghy ( after we passed the Burger King). And Senior Frogs. We dropped of Debbie and unpacked groceries.

We are on our way to Nassau Bahamas with our friends Debbie and David. Looks like decent weather pretty sunny day, about and 8 hour trip, able to sail most of the way catching 5-6 knots. Just hanging on the side of the boat and watching the beautiful sun hit the waves as we sail. Took a nap in the PM and sailed for a while into Nassau for Steve so he could take a nap. Believe me it is hard to steer for hours on end so we take turns. Steve handles the huge waves better than I do. Today is very nice min to mod waves and a pretty sail. Coming into Nassau the weather was very weird and the swells were way taller than our boat but we just surfed on in to calmer waters. Looking back at our friends the sight of them disappeared by the height of the waves. 🙂  We traveled on into the harbor in calmer waters into Nassau Harbor to anchor out across from the Paradise Islands and Atlantis. Pretty lights at night. We ate at a restaurant called the Green Parrot that had free wifi. That was a fantastic cheeseburger and great company. After that back to the boat and get some rest. Everyone have a great day tomorrow.

CAPTAINS LOG: good weather today boat doing really well. great trip boat surfed huge waves today.

Today started out beautifully and stayed pretty good all day. We had a good day of sailing today with average waves. I had to pilot today for a while am trying to learn to navigate boat while in full sailing mode. Steve has to rest even in good days you get tired holding that wheel. We had a wonderful day sailing.