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Day 6-7, June 22nd to 23rd
THIS IS IT!!!! We are finally heading off to the Bahamas - our long awaited vacation on the boat is going to begin - and even though our week on the boat at the Marina is still somewhat of a vacation, it really does begin when we actually "move" the boat and head off to the Bahamas. We are ready…both of us awake off and on during the night waiting for the alarm clock to go of (which it never did incidentally) and we were both out of bed at 4:30 am. Salty was "Mr. sleepy-face and bed head" looking at us as if we were crazy…. "what's going on, one minute we are all asleep and I'm on the bed to boot, and the next minute, you two are out of bed and doing stuff when it isn't even light out"! We are hustling and bustling around trying to get the boat ready - take Salty…no DRAG Salty out of bed to have a P&P and even he is having a problem that early in the morning. I had been sea-sick when we moved the boat from Dania Beach to Miami Beach the last time, so I was not wanting to experience that again and took a Bonine (American for Gravol)…no, I took half a pill cuz I know it's going to put me OUT. Anyway, we are ready to go, have struggled to put the ramp/stairs up and away and we are now going to move the boat out of the slip. I am the one in charge of getting the bazillion lines off the bow pilings as we are now "cut loose" in the stern. We do have bow thrusters which are "supposed" to make everything so much easier - NOT! Our boat hook doesn't want to open - great - so I've got that piece of crap to deal with while Barry is trying to maneuver the boat back and forth with the bow thruster as I fight with the lines on the pilings. Needless to say, his patience is running thin and I am still fighting with lines - and I might add, these lines have been in the same position for SIX months - meaning, rain, salt water, pressure, etc. that has SET them into place. Sorry, I'm no Arnold Schwarzenegger and I'm just not strong enough to pull them out of position, let alone try to hook them with a hook that doesn't work. Of course, I'm cursing the dang lines the entire time I'm fighting with them and then when I turned to get off the bow I slipped and fell right into that pile of crusty, stinky lines - the irony of it all. Never mind. We did make it through that fiasco with minimal yelling and minimal feelings being hurt…..in time to get to the gas pumps just after they opened….7:20 am which was only 20 minutes later than planned. We fueled up with 300 Gallons at $861.25 and I rushed off to buy a fancy, shmansy hook that can do everything I need it to do, including perform miracles (yeah right). BUT, this is it! We are into the channel, with Salty still in his docking/locking/moving the boat harness and being the perfect boater that he can be. We get out there and there is a Cruise ship coming in - the Norwegian Dawn - and we all wave good-bye to each other. We are not even past the cut when Barry says, the GPS chart is not working! Great. It's quite breezy and the water has a fairly good chop but what is that - the GPS is not working????? I am at the helm and he is fussing and farting with the GPS map… nothing. So! Off we go and turn around to head back to the Marina and it is rocking and rolling out there to boot. I can't believe it - after all the fighting we went through to get out of there, we have to go back! Luckily, coming back into the slip was far better than getting out of it, so that wasn't too bad. However, another bad thing that happened was I forgot to put the latches on the fridge and freezer and in the tossing and turning of only that half hour meant I had to clean up a broken bottle of wine, cheese, vegetables, etc. that had smashed out onto the floor. Barry and Bill Chalmers had installed these nifty little latches that were going to stop that from happening but one must remember to use them, right? One of the guys from the dock came by and had a look at the GPS but he couldn't figure out what was wrong - DUH - it could be an antenna, it could be a fuse, it could be the whole GPS head - whatever! Needless to say, Barry wasn't about to let this go easily (he never does) because he had illusions of leaving to go to the Bahamas THAT day - wrong. So, there we are (in the rain I might add) trying to get an electronics guy to come in and deal with this so we can get out of there - THE NEXT DAY - (again). Barry did manage to get a couple of "good ole boys" to come in and replace the antenna (filled with water no less - from the hurricane?), replace the VHF radio because it crapped out too with a whole new one (we don't even want to go there) and whatever other paraphernalia that was needed. That took all day with them doing what they could for several hours and then having to leave, get another part and come back around 7:00 - I think they left around 8:30 pm. Good thing the guys were working on technical stuff and it was raining on and off during the day because that was one of the most unproductive days "I" have ever had (remember the Bonine?) I even laid down for a couple of hours and that never happens. I managed to pull myself together long enough to walk to "Opa" a really great Greek restaurant for dinner then we both came back to go to bed early for our big adventure in the morning (again).
Day 7, June 23rd - Thursday morning we are up and at 'em at 4:30 again and were pretty much ready to go on time which was about 6:30 am. Yes, I remembered the fridge/freezer latches, however, I tested them by pulling on them after they were latched and lo and behold, they didn't work! Barry came up with a nifty idea to secure them with those plastic ties that guys use for various things in plumbing, electrical work, or whatever. Getting out of the slip this time was much easier with only minimal lines to take off and no gassing up required….we were out in the channel at 6:40 am with a bit of a breeze and light chop - heading for the Bahamas. We were in 2-3' waves at first then once we got out further they kicked up to 3-4's which isn't so bad because we've been in worse but still it's stressful for the Captain as he has to check and double check gauges, charts and courses at all times. The new isen-glass (plastic) and bimini top were great while we were being smashed with spray coming off the waves and right over the top of the boat in a Southeasterly wind. Seeing as we sit 15' above the water line, that's quite a spray! Once we passed Bimini Islands (after 3 hours) and were over the Bahamian Banks, the water calmed down to 1-2's for a while as the water goes from 1,000' deep to approximately 10' and we are protected by the small islands along the way. We are going straight through to Nassau instead of stopping at Bimini and hopefully, our gas holds out for a 10 hour tour. It was quite the site to see the large pink building in the distance as we had a visual of "Atlantis" in Nassau - it's always great to see land when you've been out of sight of it for hours. We rolled into Atlantis Marina at 5:00 pm, got into our slip and went through the whole Immigration/Customs check in. It was actually quite smooth this time in comparison to other years we've checked in. The Captain had a cell phone in his hand within 45 minutes and at 80 cents a minute for long distance calls, it should save us a couple of bucks over the satellite phone which is $1.10 a minute. Believe me, we'll need to save a couple of bucks to stay in this place - whoa baby - this is posh stuff! The guy who rented it was Evano Gardiner - a very nice guy who is also working at Atlantis and very helpful indeed. A very large yacht pulled in after we were already in our slip and we actually had passed it coming across - "Blackhawk" from Chicago. Any bets the owner was a hockey player? We settled in, had a couple of cocktails and ordered room service…yup, they delivered dinner right to our slip and it was great. Great for us - the steward had to deliver it in the POURING rain! Captain Bear was exhausted so this worked out well and we'll tour the famous Atlantis complex tomorrow.
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