Started with this first, because it was SUPERB at White Cay in Berry Islands - also, a reminder - put your arrow over the photo and hold it until the box appears that will give you a brief description of the picture. No need to click your mouse.
As with Judy's birthday, will post all photos to this page from now on when quantity too much to email. Will email update notice so you can come check out any new photos. At least this is the plan....
These are the large versions of the photos that MAY some day get posted to page two in smaller versions once I relearn some usable html (will access through button two on home page). FOR NOW THO, to get a brief description of the photos below, hold your pointer over the picture and there should appear a small box with brief description of the picture.
We headed out from Miami around 6 pm Friday, 7/16 towards Biminis - North and South Bimini are larger, populated islands and there are a string of smaller 'cays' where we were headed. That first night Deborah got up at 3 a.m. and roamed the deck - only one other passenger was up there and he was snoring away on the poopdeck. Walked around for an hour and saw a few of the crew - the next two nights, it was a lot more crowded - as people were sleeping and generally all around up deck during the night. That first night was also when the 'barefoot' policy took hold for us all - we had kept our shoes on the first evening but after that it was an easy habit to get in to and a very difficult one to get over... Dropped anchor in the morning off of Gun Cay in the Biminis (about 50 miles east of Miami) and swam with stingrays (and large boats from Pompano Beach and Miami...who were REALLY HAPPY to see us show up!). Altho, we weren't an overwhelming group - some stayed aboard and overall there were only about 110 on board as passengers with around 45 or so crew.
We had breakfast and lunch aboard - and the soon to be familiar Rum Swizzles at 5pm, then dinner in two seatings and we headed out that night toward Berry Islands which lie north of Nassau and are beautiful. Ended up swimming off of White Cay which is near Hoffman or Holmes Cay - forgot which and too lazy to look up now - and most of the pictures are from this area (or the boat). Headed out for Nassau around 10:30 that night - Dick helped to put up the sails when he woke up on the deck as they turned on deck lights - ran with sails most of the time and the navigator Ivan from Yugoslavia said they were getting 20-40% of the speed from the sails (that night ran near to 11 knots).
Got into Nassau - regretfully - in the morning around 7:30 and the pilot took us in. Some shots below show heading into Nassau with the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island to the left (distant, tallest buildings) and Nassau, Providence Island to right. We headed off boat around 9am (right before the daily Captain's Story Time...sigh) and got on a Jitney to take us out west to Cable Beach where the Wyndham hotel/resort/casino was - was built by the Carnival Cruise line and looks like it (same decor/style) but had everything we needed and we got great view from our gulf front 9th floor rooms, so worked out well. Got another jitney back into Nassau, took a water taxi over to Paradise Island and went through the Atlantis resort (barely resisting a salesman who wanted to sell us membership in a travel club - until we told him we didn't make the requisite salary even among the three of us (he let us go easily then). At Atlantis enjoyed the Chihuly sculptures (one of the glass ones is shown below) and the huge indoor aquarium (Dick has pictures), then returned by taxi to Nassau (the water taxi was not a big hit - think of the trucks of hens in pens you see on the highway, Dick found a great local restaurant for Jerk Chicken sandwiches then walked around until we could go back and check into our room at 4 p.m.
At the Wyndham, we (Rosemary & Deborah) gave the 25cent machines some of our money until our arms got tired (stopped to fill up the penny machine,too), then to bed. Still weaving back and forth from our sea legs (this lasted for most of us until Wednesday or Thursday after we got back). Tuesday morning did a quick tour of the Fort Charlotte/Fort Stanley in picture below - one guy was cutting the grass on the side of the slope the Bahamian way - with a weed wacker - you may be able to make it out. Great views from there. The day before - Monday when we landed - Dick and I walked around more and went up to Fincastle Fort - highest point on the island of Providence and had a great view of the harbor - went to the old library - a round building about 200 years old and with 3 flights of stairs. Used to be the jail. They had a print from early settlement that showed the same site as we saw up on Fincastle, but the price was $195 for a set (altho only 5 cents for an overdue book, as I found out while listening to a young Cuban male check one out that he was told to return before he went back to Cuba).
One more thing about coming into Nassau - our boat info told us to go check in at the 'pink building' to "let them know you've arrived in port." Both Dick and I, good boy/girl scouts both forced Mom (was a 'bluebird' never a scout...it shows in the end) to go with us. Finally found the pink building, were told to go to the first door to the right down the hallway, when we went it (Mom hanging back in the hall), the three people looked startled...told our story of 'checking in' and they held back the laughter and asked how many people and bags we each had - I said 3 people and tried to find Mom and started to show the man sitting at the desk our bags but he said, 'just tell me' and we did and then he said 'have a good visit' and the other man showed us out (to be kind I think, not because he had to). As it was, when we left the pink building area, we saw a sign on the gate and they were at SECURITY LEVEL 1. Ah well...
When we left they never asked us if we had 'checked in at the pink building.'
But we did get a great little 19 person plane out and he didn't waste time taxiing very long at either airport - got back in less than an hour to Miami and headed back home Tuesday night. It was great and we think you should ALL go! It'd be great as a group, as a honeymoon, or just as a quick 4 day like we had - quicker even than we thought it would be. Hope the pictures come out on the website. Enjoy!
Started with this first, because it was SUPERB at White Cay in Berry Islands - also, a reminder - put your arrow over the photo and hold it until the box appears that will give you a brief description of the picture. No need to click your mouse.