continued... Now that we were finally inside the park, we wandered around, trying to find a towel kiosk. We did eventually find one at the far end of the park.

Once we got our wristbands, we decided that we wanted to ride the Rapid River first. According to the map, there were nine stops where one could get on and off the river. We went to the stop closest to the kiosk and realized that no one was getting off their inner tubes, which meant no inner tubes were available for us to get on. We realized we needed to go to the the river’s entrance, stop one, in order to get on.

We got a little lost trying to find the entrance to the river, but eventually found it. We each grabbed individual inner tubes. Eric and Keith raced down, while Christi just let the river push her along. The first half of the river was powered by a wave machine that made gentle swells that pushed the tubes along.

Then we came to a conveyer belt, which lifted us up. Ah ha! So the river was a gentle slope down and then the conveyer belt took the tubes back up to the top.

The rest of the river had sections with rapids created by putting what were essentially small speed bumps in the bottom of the river.

Even though it looked like the river was intended to be ridden as a continuous loop, everyone was required to get off at stop nine. We decided to go to the Power Tower next, which had four waterslides.

Only one of the four did not require an inner tube, the Abyss, so we went on that one first. As seen in the photo above, The Power Tower had large decorative metal screens that provided great ventilation. However, it was pretty windy, and the wind coming through the screens was cold.

The views from the top of the Power Tower were stunning.

The Abyss ride was dark with a long, straight drop. At the end of the ride, we splashed into a pool. When we opened our eyes, the first thing we saw were fish swimming around us, which felt surreal.

It took a moment to get oriented; we were in what felt like a cave. Directly ahead of and to the left were large fish tanks embedded into the walls of the cave. The exit was a little off to the side and discreet, so it took a moment to figure out where to go.

Eric and Keith decided to grab inner tubes and go on the rest of the slides in the Power Tower. Christi was cold. She knew that she couldn’t take standing in the wind tunnel again, so she found a lounge chair, believing that she’d warm back up once she’d dried off. She was entertained by some birds playing on a waterfall.

Eric and Keith were surprised when the waterslide let them out inside the river, and they wound up doing the river ride again. Meanwhile, with the strong, cool wind, Christi only continued to get colder. She left the park at 1700 and went back to Kosmos to make dinner. By the time Eric and Keith got to the end of the river ride, it was 1730. They decided they were ready to go back to Kosmos, too.

After eating every bite of food Christi had made, Eric and Keith were still hungry. Given that they’d (according to Eric’s watch) walked 7.5 miles and climbed 16 flights of stairs, it should have been no surprise that they were feeling extra hungry.

On the east side of the marina was area called Marina Village, which was a cluster of buildings that looked like typical Bahamian homes. We knew it was yet another shopping area, and that it had some food options. We walked over there to scope out more food.

Marina Village was crowded. We opted instead to go to the closest restaurant to Kosmos, the one in the back corner of the resort where the channel met the marina entrance. Here was the twilight as we were walking back.

Sunset Point was an outdoor restaurant/bar under a covered patio with beautiful views of the channel between New Providence Island and Paradise Island. It didn’t have many patrons and was quiet.

As expected from a high end resort, the prices were outrageous. Fortunately, they weren’t eating a full meal, just salads. Keith ordered a watermelon feta salad, which is something that Christi regularly makes during watermelon season, and one of Keith’s favorites. It tasted pretty much the same as Christi’s version.

Eric got a mango and cucumber chow, which said it was a vegetable slaw with mango, cucumber, red onion, peppers and cilantro, with a jalapeño lime dressing. The slaw was made with chili peppers, not bell pepper, and had a serious kick. Eric really liked it.