On Thursday, April 24 — We didn’t sleep well because a storm hit in the wee hours of the morning that woke us up. We did manage to go back to sleep, but it was still raining pretty hard when we got up for the day. We were pleased at our luck — the days we were in the park, the weather had been nice, and it turned icky on the day we were leaving.
The marina check out time was at 1100. Last night, we’d talked about possibly going back into the resort this morning to check out some of the places that we’d missed. Even if the weather had been nice, Keith and Christi woke feeling like they simply could not do any more walking. They were glad to be leaving.
Eric, on the other hand, was feeling full of energy as a result of anxiety. After that nightmare ride into Atlantis on Monday, he was anxious about leaving. Our destination was a marina on the southeast side of New Providence Island (the purple dot on the map below), and it had a narrow entrance channel with a couple of slight turns. He was having anxiety about navigating that channel.
We untied from the dock at 1045. We were pleased to see that traffic on the water was light. We realized that Monday had been the end of a holiday weekend — no wonder it had been so crazy! As a general rule, we try not to take Kosmos out on holiday weekends exactly because that is when it’s crowded with drunks who have no clue what they were doing.
We only made 4 knots in channel at 1650 RPM because the wind and current were both against us. We noted that the properties lining the water of Paradise Island looked very high end, most with private docks.
As soon as we were out of the channel, the current lessened and we sped up to 5.5 knots. However, without the protection from Paradise Island, it got uncomfortable fast. The wind was blowing at 17 – 18 knots right on the nose, with gusts to 20 knots. The wind chop was 2 – 3 foot head seas at 2 – 3 seconds, right on the nose, creating white caps. Fortunately, thanks to the protection from Eleuthera, there was no swell, but that was offset by the wakes from other boats. Even though there wasn’t a lot of traffic, most of the boats were speed boats that created big wakes. Given how small the waves were, there was a surprising amount of sea spray — the windows were covered with salt water. So much for the wash down we’d gotten from Mother Nature this morning!
Keith and Christi both got seasick. We were all surprised that Eric didn’t get sick, since of the three of us, he has the hardest time with head seas. We think it was pure adrenaline from the anxiety about the channel that kept him from getting sick.
Fortunately, it was only a 1.5 hour ride to the entrance. We believed this was a relatively new man-made harbor. The fork to the right led into a private housing development, the fork on the left into the marina. Outside the channel, it was only 2-feet deep. The fact that we were near the new moon and having negative tide swings made Eric all the more anxious. Eric navigated into the marina with no problems.
There were visual markers along the channel, too. Looking back at the markers from near the entrance.
Entering the marina. It looked like those condos along the waterfront were brand new.
And there were several more condo complexes inside the marina (to the right).
Our first stop was at the fuel dock (the little house to the left in the above photo and the rectangle on the left sticking out into the channel right before the docks began on the satellite map above). When we’d fueled up in Panama back in January, we’d genuinely believed we wouldn’t need to get fuel again until July. However, the surprise of having to disconnect the alternator meant that we were running the generator a lot more than anticipated.
We took on 250 gallons of fuel at $4.91 per gallon, which was less than we’d paid than in both San Diego (end of November 2024) and Mexico (mid-December 2024). Unfortunately, the odor from the fuel smell both Christi and Keith even sicker. The tide was going down, and as we moved from the fuel dock to our slip (blue dot in the satellite map above), Kosmos stirred up the sand on the bottom. Jellyfish floated up along with the sand.
Like the Atlantis marina, this marina had fixed docks, where the boats tied up to the pylons, rather than floating docks with cleats. Like in Atlantis, a marina staff member came out and helped us tie up. It took a while to get situated just right.
And when Eric went to check in at the marina office, he found out that, like in Atlantis, Palm Cay Marina asked for no paperwork from us. Once Kosmos was situated and we were checked into the marina, the tiredness caught up with Eric. Our original plan had been to immediately get to work on chores that had been deferred because they were difficult to do at anchor, but we were simply too tired. We rested in the afternoon.
We had an early dinner at the marina restaurant. Here were some photos of the marina complex. The first are the assorted offices, including the marina office and a little deli/mini-mart. One of the little buildings was a sales office where they were selling the condos seen in the photos and other types of housing that were apparently part of this complex.
The complex had a pool and private beach. There were two staff making sure no outsiders entered.
The restaurant was called the Pink Octopus, and it was located at the tip of the channel into the marina.
While adjacent to the pools and beach in the photos above, the restaurant had its own separate pools and beach.
We sat outside and enjoyed the lovely views. We also saw a few boats come in from/go out into the ocean.
In addition to the typical food served in most Bahamian restaurants, this restaurant also had pizza and some middle eastern/Israeli/Jewish foods. The cultural food was a nice change of pace. After dinner, we went back to Kosmos and had a quiet night onboard.