Saturday, March 20, 2010 Spring and Lyric's Birthday :)

rom: Allen’s Cay N24 44.888 W076 50.286
To: Nassau Harbor, New Providence Island N25 04.682 W077 19.730
Left 8:12am Arrived:3:00pm

Happy Birthday little Lyric!!!
I got Basra weather on 4003 USSB at 7:00 this morning and the weather looks good. We left Allen’s Cay and Lone Palm Island under the quiet, sunny skies and 68 degrees through clear turquoise waters. I saw one dolphin and two good size fish – neither of which we caught with our fishing lines dragging behind us – when I went up for bow watch through the Yellow Banks. We zigzagged around a couple of coral heads, avoided the jutting rocks at Porgee Rock and arrived at the east entrance of Nassau Harbor close to 2:30pm. There was boat traffic that was buzzing every which way and in every manner. I noticed we had the current with us and even though we were throttled up only to 1500rpms we were even zipping along at 7.81 knots. Yikes! In a crowded harbor entrance! Houseboats, pontoons, commercial fishing boats were all zipping about with over packed boats of tourists; dive boats packed to the gills with bare chested, white bodied college boys and their girlfriends clad in bikinis - also with tender white skin waiting to turn lobster colored by the end of the day. Tour boats were booming out of the gas docks at full throttle and mega yachts were charging towards the entrance to the Atlantis Casino/Marina. The harbor was crazy with activity. Reggae and oldies tunes from the 70s were booming from boats competing with each other to be noticed. Fried food smells wafted from the marinas and restaurants on the shore. There were quite a few sails on the horizon behind us all vying for space to enter and anchor in the harbor. Looking toward the west end of the harbor, 4 huge cruise ships were tied to the docks waiting for, or dropping off thousands of passengers. Welcome to Nassau, spring break 2010. This is officially the first day of spring and this place is hopping with people on spring break!

We anchored next to two small sailboats that are rafted together close to the Green Parrot Restaurant. As we were anchoring, Star Shine a sailboat that was also at Allen’s pulled in and anchored on the other side of the two rafted boats. I was amazed to watch 10 people fit into a little zodiac and dinghy out from the dinghy dock to the two rafted boats. One boat was no more than a little day sailboat; the other is a 30 ft hunter. With two people already on board (if not more) how on earth are they going to sleep 12 people there? I decided that it was time for a gin and tonic while we waited for the anchor to do it’s magic and dig into the sand in this strong current. Two gin & tonics in hand, one for me and one for Wayne, and topside to watch all the activities while waiting to see if the anchor would hold. We’re in pretty tight quarters and more boats keep coming in. Watched one boat with a broken mast come into a fuel dock, then anchor off of it. No room at the inn in the attached marina/boatyard.

As the tide came in all the boats started moving in different directions. There are some wildly unpredictable currents in here that I don’t remember last time. We kept swinging towards the other boats, and they towards us. Normally we all swing in the same pattern, but here we do not. I’m thinking that because this harbor is long and narrow that when the tides come in, they meet in the middle creating interesting currents in the middle. So the boats all go every which way – which they do. It looks like each boat is doing it’s own thing and not synchronized with any other boat. Wayne shortened the scope twice on our chain (to shorten our swing) but it didn’t help much. Maybe it did – we never ran into another boat. We came close quite a few times but never touched. We sat up top watching the boats swinging about and watching the festivities at the Italian restaurant next to the Green Parrot. It looked like a wedding or something because everything was being decked out in white table clothes, the waiters were in formal wear and when the guests started arriving they were in formal wear too. The music was loud and it sounded like they had a DJ spinning tunes as well as a band setting up. It turned out it was a fund raising event for the rotary club. They had an auction and the guy wasn’t having much success as he kept belittling the people for not bidding for items that were over the starting price “Do I hear $2100, 2100? Come on people – what are you a bunch of cheapskates?” Come on you cheapskates, lets spend some money – it’s for a good cause – do I hear 2050, 2050?” Good way to get people to bid I guess – but it didn’t work, each time, the item went for the original asking price. Then the James Bond themes started playing from Thunder Ball, Diamonds are Forever, etc., and music from the seventies. The music blared out to the anchorage and a few times it sounded like the Reggae from the freighters at Potters Cay decided to try to silence them by drownding them out with their own music, then another with Rap Music. It all started settling down around 1:00am though…

It looks like the wild currents and swinging in here become more consistent with the tide going back out too. It’s 3:00am and time for some shuteye?