There looked like a good window opening Tuesday so we started to get the boat ready to travel. This actually took about a day to put everything back together and get the dinghy put away. We travel with the dinghy inflated and stored on our bow. We do not tow it on any long passages. We also had to do some provisioning that was only partly successful, as the store was low on vegetables and meat.

The window held and we left the marina about 1:00pm, Tuesday under sunny skies. The winds were light so we motored with relatively calm seas. We did have a pod of five dolphins playing in our bow wake for awhile. They rolled and darted and seemed to play "chicken" on who could get closest to the boat. We also saw flying fish skimming across the water. I was amazed at how far they actually fly. A nearly full moon came out and we had a bright moonlit night. About 11:00pm, the winds filled in and we had a great sail (close hauled for the sailor types) on one tack all the way to Nassau.

We arrived at Nassau harbour about 9:00am, Wednesday. After clearing in with Nassau Harbour Control (you have to ask permission to enter, leave or move in the harbour), we proceeded to anchor. Anchoring is not good in the harbour as the ground is quite hard and there is little for the anchor to grab onto. After several attempts, we changed location and were able to get a good set. We anchored just off Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association (BASRA) and Crocodiles Restaurant. A couple in Nassau run the morning weather net, are active in BASRA and host a luncheon at Crocodiles for all the visiting cruisers every Thursday. As we would be there on Thursday, we had to go to the lunch. This meant getting the dinghy off the bow. While, in itself, this is not a big thing, it was the first time we tried it in 20-knot winds. The dinghy and Karen behaved themselves and we had a good launch in time to make lunch. About 20 cruisers showed up and Nick and Carolyn welcomed everybody to Nassau. They are a delightful couple and very supportive of the cruising community. We got to meet the other cruisers in the anchorage and see where everybody was going. Several cruisers had already done the Exumas and were heading back to the States. There were a lot of Canadian boats here - we counted 8 boats out of about 20 in the anchorage. After lunch, we walked over to the BASRA office and joined as members. This organization is entirely voluntary and performs rescue services and assists boaters within the Bahamas. We talked to Chris Lloyd who works for BASRA and he mentioned how few Canadians joined BASRA even though there is a high percentage of Canadians cruising the area. This is disappointing as they do provide a good service.

We were planning to stop in Nassau for only a couple of days but the weather had other plans. We were in for a period of high winds and a cold front on Sunday. As our friends in Lucaya said, cruiser plans are written in Jell-O. On Friday we took the dinghy over to Paradise Island and Atlantis. Atlantis is a billion-dollar resort, sort of an adult Disneyland, built around the lost world of Atlantis theme. There is a truly impressive aquarium that you can walk around, over and through with all the fish from the area. Also a "Dig" which tells the Atlantis story and a casino, shops and water parks. Of course there is a marina in the heart of Atlantis that charges $4/foot of boat length to stay overnight. We left our anchored boat outside and took our dinghy into the marina, past mega-yachts (75 footers looked small) to the dinghy dock. The Dock Master let us tie up and we went to explore. The place is impressive and there were lots of people there. The entrees in many of the restaurants ran around $40 so we did not eat. We did have Michael Jackson's suite pointed out to us. The suite runs for a cool $25000/night - now that is one expensive sleep.