We Made It!!!

We are here. Can't waste any more precious Bahama day . Must find Victory slushy drink!! More to come later.

Wow. We are back. This has been a great day, mostly because we are in the Bahamas! It started out as expected, a slushy drink.
We took a dip in the pool/hot tub (only because the water was so warm). The day has been a little overcast, but hey, it is the Bahamas.



Getting here was not too bad The seas started out pretty calm and got to about 3ft in the gulf. We maintained about 25 knots the whole way, except for 2 stops, BJ had to pee, and the Coast Guard pulled us over. BJ and I differ on the details, but here is my version: We were about 12 miles from Grand Bahama when I saw a flashing light on a vessel of into the distance. It appeared to be pretty large and traveling at a high rate of speed. As it cam closer I noticed that it was a US Coast Guard ship. I kept going wondering if they were going to adhere to the "rule of the road" as I clearly had the right away in a collision course, but of course my hull is not made of steel. About the time I was contemplating a "decisive change of course", someone came on the VHF radio looking for the fast moving express at my coordinates. I responded and we changed to a working channel. He then said "Capt., can you take it down?" I responded with "take what down?" He then said my rate of speed, so I slowed to the bare steerage speed. He then asked, with some amount of animosity in his voice "Capt. did you hear the sirens and see the blue light?" I looked back and saw that the lights were off and responded "I don't see any flashing lights or siren." He sighed and with a lowering inflection, said that they had just shut them off. After another 10 minutes of questioning, we were on our way with no further incidents.


We are not officially the smallest boat in the marina, but we are in the running. We are tied up next to a boat whose owners live in Charleston National (Mt. Pleasant) and across from another couple from Charleston. It is a very small world. We ran onto a boat that was tied up to the same dock in West Palm Beach. Everybody seems to be going to Green Turtle Cay. We will also end up there, but we are going to stop in Spanish Cay first. The following is a where in the picture are Brian and BJ: (hint: Blue canopy and small)





The Marina
Old Bahama Bay Marina

This is a pretty nice resort, but it if more of a stop over than a destination. They have lovely cottages if you wanted a pretty secluded place, and they seem to specialize in families. There are kids running around everywhere. The marina only holds up to 75 ft boats, but obviously that was not a problem for us.



The Food

This is a new section of the blog, so I can remember what I ate and where I ate it, and also, whether it was any good.


Bonefish Folleys

This is the informal restaurant here at the marina/resort. We had lunch (and our first slushy drink). BJ had the lobster salad, and I had the Fresh Grouper sandwich, with Mahi Mahi since they were out of Grouper. The fish was lightly seasoned and grilled served on some Bahamian bread. They were both good, but the sandwich really stood out as a must have.


The Aqua

This is the "fine dining" restaurant of the marina/resort. The attire was entirely mixed from flip flops to sports coats (we were in between). The only thing everyone brought were their kids. The wine list was pretty lame. The pellegrino came in the smallest bottles that I have ever seen. We tried a 3 course meal in an attempt to sample as much as possible. The portions were just right for this. The salads were hit and miss. BJ had the Aqua salad and was disappointed, but I had the table-side Cesar and was pleased. I guess because we are on a tropical island, the lime juice was very prominant in the dressing, which suited me fine.

We tried two different soups for our second course. BJ had the lobster bisque, and I had the "famous" conch chowder. BJs bisque was excellent. Not as creamy as a typical bisque, but with all of the flavor. My chowder was pretty good, since it was a light broth version of chowder with a lot of light spices. So here we were 2 for 2.