Welcome to Staniel Cay, Exuma Islands, Bahamas — And Pig Beach

Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric

Sunday, April 27 — We got up at 0530 and untied from the dock at 0630, just as the sun was beginning to rise. It was high tide. Today was the new moon, so the tides were extra high/ low. We were grateful to have a little more water under the keel as we navigated the narrow channel out.

We were heading to an area called Staniel Cay, part of the string of tiny islands that make up the Exumas.

The sea conditions were okay. The 1 – 2 foot wind chop waves were sharp, hitting at 2 – 3 second intervals, and breaking. They were hitting us on the starboard. The motion was lurchy. Much to our frustration, the closet was squeaking like crazy like it does in head seas. In good news, there was no swell. It was a sunny day with scattered clouds.

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Chores and Errands in Nassau, New Providence Island, Bahamas

Posted on May 7, 2025 by Eric

Friday, April 25 — Eric did not sleep well. The boat became grounded at low tide in the middle of the night and started making unusual motions. The strange motion kept him from sleeping. Christi and Keith slept through it.

Despite being tired, Eric was feeling motivated to get stuff done. While Christi and Keith did school, Eric dug out the parts he’d need for his projects. Many were in deep spaces that were difficult to access — just getting the parts out was a project in and of itself!

As soon as Christi and Keith were done with school, we headed out. It was near high tide when we left Kosmos.

We rented a car from the marina office. They charged $11 per hour and didn’t require us to refill the fuel we used. Eric found driving on the left hand side of the road in traffic required a lot more concentration than normal. And it was a little bit scary, particularly with making right hand turns.

Our first stop was an auto parts store to get oil, which was the farthest away from all of our errands — a 10-minute drive.

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Atlantis Waterpark — Day 3

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Eric

Wednesday, April 23, 2025 — We arrived at the park at 0930 so we could go on The Serpent Slide before the rest of the rides opened. We exited the ride right at 1000 and went straight to the river just as it opened. Today, the waves from the wave machine were noticeably bigger, there were a lot more breaking waves, and the ride moved faster. A couple of days ago, Christi had overheard a patron complaining to a lifeguard about the wave machine being turned down. The lifeguard had said there’d been too many accidents. The patron had said he understood why Atlantis needed to do that since, over the last few weeks, the Bahamas had been full of drunk, stupid 18 year old high school seniors on their spring breaks (the legal drinking age in the Bahamas is 18). We were wondering if Atlantis felt comfortable turning up the wave machine now that most spring breaks were over.

At 1230, we started scoping out food options. One of the employees told us that the round building across the lagoon from Shake Shack was a Mexican restaurant called Crocodilo. Since Mexican food was our favorite, we were sold!

From the waterslides, we walked over one of the lagoon bridges to the back the lagoon/ocean. Just to give you a sense of how big the resort was, the first shot was looking back at the main hotel from just beyond the bridge, and the second photo was of the restaurant, taken from the bridge.

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Atlantis Waterpark — Day 2, Part 2

Posted on May 4, 2025 by Eric

continued… The Mayan Temple four waterslides, and two went through a shark tank.

If you look carefully, you can see the sharks in the tank. The rectangular tube on the left was an inner tube ride called The Serpent Slide, the one on the right was called Leap of Faith and did not have an inner tube. Eric and Keith wanted to do the Leap of Faith first. Christi opted not to go. It was a straight drop down into the shark tank, and they moved through the tank extremely quickly.

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Atlantis Waterpark — Day 2, Part 1

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Eric

Tuesday, April 22, 2025 – Today we were all wearing water shoes — yesterday, we’d been in flip-flops and we realized water shoes were a better choice for the park. According to the material we’d been given at the marina office, the pools and beaches opened at 0900, but the waterslides and Rapid River didn’t open until 1000. Knowing that it would take a half-hour to get to the waterpark, at 0925, we called for a golf cart to pick us up.

When the golf cart dropped us off, we couldn’t believe how long the line was to buy tickets. We were happy to be by-passing that line! We joined a mob of people all speed walking through the long stretch between the entrance and the waterpark itself.

Now that we’d scoped out the park, we’d formulated a strategy to maximize the number of rides we went on today: start at the river entrance (stop 1), exit the river at stop 7, which was where the entrance to the Power Tower was, and take our inner tubes with us to the Tower slides. The waterslides let out near stop 6, then we could get off again at stop 7 and do that loop over and over again until we’d had our fill of those inner tube rides.

As anticipated, we reached the rides around 0955. We were surprised to see that a waterslide at the Mayan Temple was already running, and looked like it had been for a while. The river had not opened yet, though, and we were one of the first ones on it.