Underway, leaving Big Majors in the Exumas, for the transit back to Nassau and Jackson's flight back to the states. Weather has been very good for his visit and we able to do all the key experiences.
As we pass over the Yellow Bank we need a lookout on the bow to point out the dangerous coral heads. The direct route to Nassau takes you over a 6ft deep ridgeline with lots of coral. We deviate a bit to the west and pass over a 12-14ft deep area with less coral. But, you still have to watch out.
The weather and sun angle are ideal for this passage over the Bank. We only had to maneuver around coral heads a few times.
This is what Jackson is watching for. Most of these coral heads are on the bottom and don't come up near the surface, but no sense passing over one as you really can't tell how close to the surface they come.
Back to Nassau, entering the harbor from the east. We will pull into Nassau Harbour Club for a couple days.
Stopping in Nassau means a trip to the Poop Deck bar and restaurant. Had some great appetizers and 2 beers, only $80. The price for cruising through paradise.
Time for one more game night before he flies out tomorrow. It's Scipbo tonight. Jackson beat us both badly.
Jackson flies out this afternoon so we have the morning to show him around the Nassau waterfront. Here's a photo from the top of the bridge over to Paradise Island.
This is the view from atop the bridge looking out to the east towards the Exumas. The Bahamian work boats moor right at the bridge. The cruisers moor at the marinas further down on the right. The multi-million dollar megayachts are moored over to the left of the photo on Paradise Island. Nassau just completed a major expansion of the megayacht marina. That's the future. At 39ft, we are one of the smaller boats cruising in the Bahamas. Most private boats we saw were 45-65ft, with many megayachts from 125-350ft.
As we came off the bridge and headed back towards the marina we stopped and chatted with this lady cleaning conch. Its takes us a couple hours to remove and clean one conch. She was making fast work of the pile in front of her and discarding the shells to her right.
All too soon it was out to the airport for the flight home. The week pretty much flew by.
One nice aspect of new IT technology - we were able to track his incoming flight and know it was arriving on time.
The bad news of today's world is there is no passing beyond security screening for visitors. Off he goes to security/passport control and on to the gates.
Time for us to restart our Bahamas cruise.
