Nassau, Bahamas, February 26 - March 1, 2022

      We had become fairly confident in our ability to maneuver Dragonfly over the past few months, so it was time for things to go wrong again.  They did in multiple ways.  The first problem had to do with fueling.  You might remember we couldn't get diesel in West Palm, so we decided to fuel up in Chub Cay on the way out.  We've heard some horror stories about contaminated fuel in the Bahamas, so we decided to use a special funnel to funnel the fuel as we pumped it from the fuel dock.  This turned what should have been a job of just a few minutes into a nearly hour long extravaganza.  The filter dramatically slowed down the rate we could pump and the fuel line was only just barely long enough, so I was holding the line with one arm against the weight of the line running back to the dock and trying to balance it over the filter and keep the nozzle flowing at the optimal rate as long as I could.  I kind of got a nice system down, but there inevitably was some spillage, which I mopped up as best I could.  Little did I know this was the good side.  When I did the other side, Lisa was watching the fuel gauge and she knew there was still some room, since the other side went quite a bit further on the dial.  Except this gauge is not adjusted quite the same and the fuel started pouring out of the bottom of the funnel.  I scrambled to my feet, but not until my favorite shorts had absorbed a nice dose of diesel fuel.  I stripped them off and put them in a zip lock to deal with later, bagged the funnel that was still spewing fuel and cleaned off the dock with absorbent rags as best I could.  

     This was not to be the last incident on the journey.  In Chub, we had figured out how to hoist the Code Zero (a lightweight downwind sail we expected to use on the trip to Nassau) and had tied the sheets to the bow pulpits, but not as tightly as I should have done.  The wind turned out not to favor the Code Zero and we flew the genoa instead.   As we arrived at the entrance to Nassau Harbor after a pleasant and uneventful sail, I took a shortcut and used the power winch to furl the sail back up.  I normally use the manual winch, which is probably a better practice.  As I'm rolling sail back up, I'm watching and Lisa is maintaining a good loose tension on her sheet, which should roll the sail up nice and tight.  I hear the winch suddenly start to strain,  like she has her line too tight.  I stop and confirm with her that she is loose and I double check that the sheet on my side is loose and I hit the power furl button again.  I hear a sharp crack and the line doesn't move at all.  Nearly simultaneously, Lisa and I both notice that the lines running from the Code Zero had come loose during the sail and have got caught in the wrapped up genoa.  I walk up to the front and the lines are taut as bowstrings and I know I've screwed up.  We quickly release the genoa, secure the flapping Code Zero lines and properly roll up the Genoa.  Unfortunately, as Lisa is preparing the fenders and dock lines, she finds that the tension on the line has exploded the plastic roller of the block littering the deck with chunks of plastic and rendering that pulley useless.  I curse my series of bad decisions that led to this point but try to focus on getting to the marina.

The famous pink castle of the Atlantis Hotel and Marina in Nassau

     Fortunately, the actual marina entrance and docking portion of the voyage went perfectly or I think I might have had a mental breakdown.  We are nestled between super-yachts.  As soon as we were secured and enterprising local guy stops by and offers to wash the boat for us.  I am inclined to decline or at least negotiate the rate, but Lisa has assessed my unhappiness at my diesel covered shorts and broken block and she takes over the negotiations and the next thing I know, we've agreed to let Sydney wash the boat and his sister will arrive tomorrow to scrub the inside from top to bottom.  I'm pretty sure Sydney has the connections to hook us up with everything legal and several things illegal should we seek them.  I'm still mad at myself, but pleased not to have a multi-hour boat scrub ahead of me. 

Sydney, not an actual Atlantis employee, provided the best service at the marina.
Spending the first few hours drinking a rum drink was much more fun than washing the boat!

     Lisa had been studying the website and was excited at the many deluxe services promised by the marina.  They talked about a dockside concierge who would arrange all your activities for you and could even get meals delivered hot and fresh to your boat.  The park promised a behind the scenes tour of their conservation efforts with the rather steep price going to subsidize more rescue operations.  However, it turns out that these claims could be described as extreme puffery at best.  The lady at the marina desk was actually not especially helpful and it turns out that she was the closest thing to a concierge they had.  Many of Lisa's requests were met with a suggestion that Lisa use the house phone to try to make arrangements herself.  Even the dinner reservations she made came with a caveat that she really wasn't supposed to do that, but she would just for us.  The behind the scenes tour described on the website didn't appear to exist at all in the actual resort.

The Eagle Rays swimming around our boat were by far our favorite animal at Atlantis.

     We tried the next morning to learn about what was on offer at the dolphin exhibit instead of the behind the scenes tour, but it took forever to find someone who was able to help us and then that turned out to be a desk with a line 20 people deep.  It was ridiculously disorganized with people jumping the line and them randomly sending people to other lines and we decided that it just wasn't worth the hassle and left.  We did do a walk through aquarium, but it was entirely devoid of any signs explaining what you were looking at it.  The hotel is actually kind of bewildering because it sprawls around a massive area of land and more or less no signage to indicate which was you should go to get places and a map that was sort of a cartoon that didn't seem to depict the actual property in very good detail. If it wasn't for the fact that we needed to stay until Monday to find the replacement boat part, I'm pretty sure we would have just bailed,

I think that part of the service issue is that most of our fellow boats were superyachts.
They have multiple employees to handle the reservations and line waiting.  Lisa has only me.

     We did eat pretty well, although everything was fairly ridiculously overpriced, even by my standards of overpaying for fancy food.  We did the "Bahamas tasting menu" at Nobu, which had a few clunkers, but also some really good food.  Most of the best stuff was more standard Nobu fare than Bahamian, but the champagne was cold and after we explained that we preferred our champagne to be poured without 5 inches of foam and losing all the bubbles because we were weird that way, the waiter tried very hard to completely eliminate all foam, which wasn't quite the message I intended, but was better than his original method.  It wasn't great value for the money and it wasn't going to break into our top 10 meals or anything like that, but it was nicer by far than anything else we'd had in the islands.

I would argue this was purely Japanese, but it was the best course. 
Monkfish liver pate, yellowfin sashimi wrapped around an asian pear and Kumamoto oyster

     We also had a reservation at Fish by Jose Andres.  In addition to being a revolutionary who is trying to improve the world by feeding people in need everywhere they are, he is an extraordinarily talented chef.  It was raining quite a bit that day, so we inquired about how to get there since it seemed to be on the other side of the resort and the cartoon map didn't indicate a clear way to get there.  They described a route where we would get delivered to an intra-resort bus stop by golf cart and then shuttled the restaurant.  The bus turned out to be a 45 minute affair between waiting for it to arrive and its route going to everyplace but our destination first.  We were a bit late for our reservation, but this is a case where Bahamas time worked in our favor and they didn't care at all.  The place was cold as a meat locker, but the manager came over to say soothing things and assure us it would warm up soon and he had made the necessary adjustments.  I'm not sure if it was that or the wine, but we did eventually get comfortable and the food was tasty, if not spectacular.  At least until dessert, which was absolutely amazing.

Carmel and chocolate; crunchy and smooth; absolutely the best thing we ate in Atlantis.

     Monday was a chore day.  I was going to hike all over Nassau in search of a good cell phone SIM and Lisa was going to do laundry and try to fix my diesel infused shorts.  I also was going to go to the best boat stores in the Bahamas to obtain a new block and maybe hit the grocery store that everyone in the marina was raving about.  The cell store was a bit of hike through the not touristy section of Nassau, which meant it was a bit rough and tumble.  I wouldn't want to walk that way at night.  In the day it was fine and other than a few touts trying to induce me to get a massage or buy a meal, it went smoothly enough.  They take COVID precautions very seriously, with an armed guard at the door checking your temperature and ensuring you wear your mask properly.  The armed guard turned out to have lived in Virginia on Fort Lee for years, so he was my new best friend.  Unfortunately, the boat part saga ended badly as none of the three boat stores actually had the part I needed.  I'm going to have to figure out how to ship that to meet me somewhere.  The grocery store was, in fact, as awesome as people said.  I paid a small fortune for indulgences like Nova lox and felt happy to do so.

 Dragonfly pretending like she's a super yacht

     When I called Lisa to say I was on my way back to the boat, she warned me that it was absolutely pouring down rain.  I was totally dry, but as I walked along it became clear it was about to start bucketing.  As I got to the foot of the very tall bridge, a young guy called out to me that I should stop in his restaurant/bar and have a beer or three while I waited out the rain.  I told him that I unfortunately had to get back.  He rejoined, "Lemme teach you a thing.  If you stop and have a beer, you women is still going to be beautiful when you get back.  That not gonna change.  But you gonna be dry and have a nice feeling from the beer.  If you go, you just gonna be wet and unhappy and probably make her mad anyhow."  I have to admit he had some valid points, but I vowed to soldier on and bid him farewell.  He called out to my back, "You gonna get on toppa that big ole bridge and you gonna be soaked in your bones.  You gonna think, why I don't listen to my new friend James, why I gotta have a head like a pig."  James was 100% right.  I was soaking wet and unhappy and the storm blew over in probably less time that I would have taken to drink a beer.  He was wrong about one thing, I didn't make her unhappy because I was carrying potato chips.  So there, James.