11. TMI About My Dinghy (and Atlantis, too)

We have had an exciting week in Nassau!  

We made lots of new friends heading the same direction we are.

    Dinner at the Poop Deck w/ friends.

Spent time at the local Starbucks using their wifi to video chat with family & take care of business.  We got our BTC (Bahamas’ cell carrier) service connected and picked up a few precautionary prescriptions to have on board in case of emergency.  

But by far the most exciting “chore” was picking out the new outboard engine for our dinghy “Slow Dancin”.  We sold our small outboard while in Ft Lauderdale in favor of keeping our larger 15 horse 4 stroke engine because it had enough power to move our family around with ease.  Us moving it around with ease never quite happened :)  Loading it onto the back of the boat for long passages required all hands on deck with Paige wrangling the dinghy alongside the boat with Andrew aboard to manhandle the engine, Sky manning the winch and me controlling the boom and hoisting the engine.  We would pull it off the transom, Andrew would hug it tightly while Paige walked the dinghy to the back of Abby where we then used our over engineered swim ladder as a lever to pull it up and strap it snugly to the back of Abby’s rails.  Sound like a lot of steps?  You should try doing it in rolling seas!  So Andrew was waiting patiently to get to the Bahamas where the 15 horse 2 stroke engine he dreamed of was readily available, and promptly bought it.  It was an exciting day when they delivered our new and shiney outboard to the Marina fresh out of the box and took the old heavy monster away to consignment.  Andrew, with Sky’s assistance, got it onto the dinghy no problem and we have been enjoying her ever since.  

That may be all you ever wanted to know about dinghies but we had a few more exciting moments this week:  Like the time we were crossing the channel to Atlantis and decided to tow Slow Dancin instead of hoist her aboard only for her to break free mid-channel.  The glass bottom boat following us was treated to the entertainment of watching us try to catch her and me almost falling in while quickly climbing on into it before she drifted away again.  But we got her secured and continued on our way.

Or the time we dinghied back across the channel to run some errands in some rough seas and all were completely drenched before reaching shore!  Lesson learned - we now always travel with the rain gear when dinghying in :)

But enough about that, now on to our Atlantis adventure.  

It truly was all the girls had hoped for!  The super friendly marina staff treated us to golf cart rides to and from the resort anytime we needed them.  

Sky made a friend on our first day there that she spent every moment with and they kept us updated on any ride or area we hadn't experienced yet.  

The entire facility is huge so if you visit Atlantis definetly plan on walking but the grounds are beautiful and their is a new pool around every corner.  Surprisingly I had one of my favorite meals there, an amazing chicken curry wrap so not just your average waterpark fare.  

We had so much fun having fun with our girls!  

We met our neighboring boats at the Marina and even got parked in by a mega-yacht for 2 days!  

    The photo doesn't even do the size justice only capturing less than half of La Pellegrina.

We loved spending time with our new friends from Canada all day at the water park and it spilled over into evenings of ice cream, hanging aboard Abby and a true Bahimian Junkanoo with costumes and instruments and lots of dancing :)

Paige said it was the best birthday ever.  

The girls didn't want to leave!  But Andrew and I are ready to leave the bustle of the large city and head to the Exumas this week for some quiet and seclusion.

Things learned this week:

Money doesn't buy you happiness.  We were by far the smallest boat in the Atlantis Basin and may have felt a little white trash :) but in speaking with the captain of one of the huge yachts who has been captaining for 15 years he said most of the families he works with fight all the time and spend their days yelling at each other and hating being confined onboard together.  So I will gladly take my little boat and my wonderful family and the amazing adventures we have together.  But if you plan on coming to Nassau you’ll need to have at least some money because it is one of the most expensive places we have traveled to.  But the people and places are beautiful so well worth the visit.  

We will be checking out the Exumas this week so stick around to see what we are up to.

12. Too Much Fun in the Exumas