Adventures on Beannacht

Friday 27th February

 

Andree and Tic had told us to visit Atlantis casino and resort if we made it to Nassau, but to dress like we hadn’t sailed here on our boat! With a shortage of fresh water and no ready access to washing machines sailors are generally a little more utilitarian when it comes to fashion! So we put on some nice clothes, washed our hair, and set off in the dinghy to storm the castle.

I could talk it up of course, but really breaking in to the Atlantis on Paradise Island was a doddle. We walked up to the front gate and were met by a helpful staff member who said that we would need to enter the beach further down the road through another hotel – you can’t come through mine, but why don’t you blag your way through theirs approach. Down the road we spotted the entrance to the marina and went in to have a look at the mega yachts. It’s hard to imagine the people who own these boats, all staffed with a professional crew in uniform, scrubbing the boats to within an inch of its life on a daily basis. Many of the larger boats are British registered as well, how have I not met these people already!?

 

After a quick tour of the opulence, we confidently walked up the steps across the hotel lobby, down one floor, said hello to the doorman as if we were meant to be here, and out the back doors to the pool area – we’re in!

Our first stop was the aquarium. A network of tunnels with large windows allowing you to view the main pools filled with every species of tropical fish you could imagine – groupers, tuna, barracuda, tarpon, reef sharks, hammerhead sharks, zebra sharks, manta ray, lobster, octopus…and a squillion more that we would have been able to identify if we had paid for a ticket and got a guide leaflet. At one point the tunnel is glass, or rather Perspex I’d imagine, and cuts straight across the main pool where you can watch schools of barracuda and tuna circling above you head and sharks lurking below.

  

Up above we took a walk through the grounds looking at the swimming pools and then decided that a dip in the ocean at their private beach was more fun. We spent an hour or so playing in the surf and then drying off on the beach.

After grabbing a snack for lunch and walking through the hotel and casino for a look we walked down the island to visit the Versailles Gardens. Created in 1939 by a rich Swede, human not vegetable, and modelled on the French variety, the gardens are tiered and include a cloisters from the 14th century purchased from an Augustine estate and relocated here. An oddly out of place piece of history on an otherwise tacky island.

   

Back on the boat we did some cleaning and got to work on the alternator. We’ve been struggling to keep up on our power consumption for a while, having to run the engine for several hours a day to generate enough juice to run our fridge and other gadgets. Yesterday we had a breakthrough, changing the regulator for a spare that I’d bought from Andy Copeland our output jumped from about 25 amps to 55 amps – an enormous improvement meaning that we only need to run the engine for 90 minutes a day at the most. The next step is to install a more advanced 3 step charger that conditions our batteries and protects them from overcharging, but that’s for another day.

We’re settling into a good routine with Chris Parker our morning weather forecast at 6.30am on our Ham radio, though it really does put me to bed at 8.30pm. The weather was due to improve today and originally we had planned to head across to Allans Cay this morning. Having listened to Chris during the week we decided to delay our departure for the improved weather to arrive, now due for Sunday.

Thanks to Culby we had a little iPlayer breakthrough today, watching the Wales vs France match from the Green Parrot this afternoon using ukproxyserver.co.uk. We thought it was just a warm up for the Ireland match tomorrow but the result really threw us, it’s always easier to be the underdogs when you’re an Ireland supporter. Tomorrow we’re heading to the cricket club in Nassau to watch the match in a room full of poms – a little perk due to our weather delay. I don’t want to imagine the abuse we’ll have to listen to if the English manage to turn us over.