Nassau - Chance to restock and see the sights

Next stop was Nassau which is on New Providence Island and is the capital of the Bahamas.  .  First we had to navigate back out the shallow channel with Amanda shouting instructions from her lookout.

Amanda providing lookout

We had not stopped here last year, we thought it would be shame not to as this is probably the place that most tourists visiting the Bahamas see – via a Cruiseship.  We also needed to stock up  on food although we had left the States with a huge amount a lot had been eaten in Cuba and although we loved the cheap fresh fruit and veg in Cuba we were almost out of some essentials like Mark’s beloved cereal and some not so essentials like crisps and Coke.  So with a cold front forecast we decided we would splurge and go into a marina, the unfortunate thing about Nassau is the crime rates are high and a number of people had recommend not anchoring as boats are often boarded and robbed.

Highrise on the horizon

The trip there was stress free once we had navigated away from the island, past the conch fishing boats and where into the Tongue of the Ocean, an area of water which is up to 3000M deep, one minute you are in 5M and next you are off soundings.

What makes Nassau most visible on the horizon is the hotels, in particular the Atlantis resort on Paradise island plus what look like large hotels but are actually a range of cruiseships. On arrival we decided we could anchor in a Delaport Bay slightly west of Nassau, as always we were trying to save some money, unfortunately this made for another bad nights sleep as it was a rolly one.  Still we were up early and heading for the harbour once we were granted to permission to enter we motored in observing what is not the prettiest of ports but interesting all the same.

Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island

After the row of cruiseship there are a few small marinas that take smaller yachts and based on a recommendation we stayed in Nassau Harbour Yacht Club, sounds poser than it is.

Most of our time in Nassau was spent stocking up on food, it felt like we were never out of the supermarket but we were like kids in a sweet shop with the variety of food available, everything you could want but at a price.  Everything cost more than in the States or the UK so although we wanted to buy lots of yummy stuff we really limited ourselves. It was also very funny to see Waitrose products again, I really would have loved a whole selection of Waitrose biscuits they looked amazing but I see Waitrose as a extravagance at home let alone when I have not been working.

So enough about food, we did have time to walk into Nassau centre and our overall opinion is that it has been spoilt.  There are some remaining colonial buildings and some of the government buildings are pretty but mainly it is full of tat tourist shops, a few luxury brands like Gucci, a few duty free shops and lots and lots of tourists from the Cruiseships.  There were 3 ships  in on the day we visited and it was over-run by people.  We did attempt to head a bit off the main strip and walked to the Art Gallery and then onto the Distillery and onto the Fort, an improvement on the main street but not that exciting.

Courthouse

Gallery

John Waltings Rum distillery

Governors House - we think

We also had a surprise visitor in Nassau, our friend Robie on Cilest who we met last year in the Bahamas had just arrived from the States and was anchored in the harbour so he managed to pop over for a glass of rum.

We appreciated the fact that we had shelter during the cold front, it was great to get stocked up with food and drink but not sure we would be rushing to return to Nassau.