June 13, 2015

Well, I think the weather made our decision for us. It is going to be blowing the entire week. I am now pretty confident we will head west back to Bimini for a while, and then head down to Marina del mar in Key Largo.

Yesterday was another day of pools and slides. What a blast. Heather gained so much confidence, we just let her take off. She went down the Leap of Faith by herself. It was hilarious, because she was gone about and hour so Chris and I decided to walk up to the Mayan Temple. Coincidentally, she was in line at the top. We saw her by her hair braid. Chris was able to video her trip down.

Heather Leap of Faith

Video

We also spent some time on the Lazy River, and Heather did quite a few tube rides. Another nice day in paradise.

We are going to leave Monday, and head back to Bimini. The lesson I learned this trip is we need to move a little faster out weather permitting. Taking 5 and 6 days each stop took a bunch of money and time. I think I would spend only a day or two out and then if time and money permit, spend the longer stays on the return.

June 11, 2015

June 11, 2015

The last two days have been a riot. On Tuesday, we started out at 10AM when the water slides opened. We were able to do that until about 1PM when storms came in. They shut the park down due to lightning. On Wednesday, we did the same thing, but ran from slide to slide from 10AM to 4PM. I don’t remember climbing so may stairs in one day. I think we did every slide at least once, and the favorites two to three times. What a blast.

Leap of Faith

Video

Bahama Steel Drums

Video

A couple of days ago, we were stressing over our budget. As I said, we have spent 2/3’s of your budget in the first ten days. We are pretty sure we may start heading back next week taking our time, but trying to get home early July rather than late July.

However, right now we are stuck here due to winds. For the next several days, the wind is going to be blowing 20 to 25 knots with Seas 5 to 7 feet. There is no way are we going anywhere until they at least settle to 3 to 4’s. We are hoping Sunday or Monday. Unfortunately, Atlantis could only extend us until Saturday. Worst case, we could move over to Hurricane Hole for a couple of days. Not a great marina,  but much cheaper, and we still have full access to Atlantis. And this is not a bad place to be stuck. I guess we will just have to make due. :-)

Right now our options are as follows; Head a little ways down the Exumas or head west toward Chub Cay or back to Bimini and from there go down the Keys. We are thinking Marina del mar and Key West would each be a 4 or 5 day stop.

Today, we decided to go over to Nassau and see downtown, including the Straw Market. We bought some shirts, jewelry for Heather, and some Cuban Cigars. All told, not bad for $200.00. There were some nice shops, restaurants, and sights. After a few hours, it did get a little boring, so around 2PM, we decided to take the ferry back over to Atlantis. Heather was pooped out, so Chris and I went over to the beach on the North side of the island. It was really a nice time, but man did it get hot.

This shack was filmed during the James Bond Thunderball Movie.

Today we got the Marina to extend us until Saturday Morning. They are still calling for 5 to 7 foot seas. I still believe we can get out of here Sunday or Monday.

June 9, 2015

On June 8, 2015, we got up early to check out of Resorts World and then head down to Blue Water to fuel prior to heading on to The Atlantis Marina about 125nm from Bimini.

When converting over from shore power to the generator, I have a process I go through. Firstly, I start the generator. Secondly, I shut off all of the individual components including the air conditioners. Then I shut off the main shore power breaker, and  then turn on the main generator breaker. Finally, I turn on all of the individual components including the air conditioners.

All seemed perfect. We were about 15 to 20nm's from Bimini when Chris went down into the salon to check on Heather. She came right back up and told me the air conditioners were all error'ed with a high pressure error. I idled the engines back and went down to see what was happening. I reset all of the units, and then went down into the engine room. I immediately noted that the air conditioner pump was not running. Finally I checked to electric panel and noticed I had turned on all of the air conditioners, but not the pump. I must have done the "process" a 100 times, but it was definitely operator error. As soon as I turned the pump on, they all fired right up. Yea!

We throttled up and headed on without any issues. It was really a pretty easy run with less than 2 foot seas down the Northwest Channel.

We fueled at Hurricane Hole, and then hailed the Atlantis for slip assignment. After a few minute wait, they came back on the radio and said we did not have reservations for the 8th. I explained to them that we did. After a half an hour floating out in Nassau Harbor, they final allowed us to come in. They put us in slip 50. I immediately noted it was a nice slip because it was close to the casino and the pools. The last time we were here, we were on the other side of the Marina which took a 5 minutes walk to get over to the casino and pools.

After we got Miss N Mountains backed in and tied off, Chris and I headed to the Dock Master's Office to check in.

I showed them our reservation, and they said there must have been an error. "a Bahamian Error?" She said we could only stay until the 12th not the 13th, and it will be $7.00 per foot instead of the $4.50 we were expecting. Now I know why the nice slip! The location of the slip dictates the price. That equates to around $500.00 per night with taxes and fees. Wow!!!

For today, all we did was hang at one of the pools and walk around to decompress from the ride over.

Tomorrow, June 9th, we hit the water slides.

June 7, 2015

Well after 6 days in Bimini I think we covered it. Maybe a day too long as it got a little boring. We drove the golf cart down to Blue Water to fill it. 2.5 gallons cost $12.00. However, Sue and Joy's tried to charge us $40.00.

In retrospec, we really had a good time here, but I am ready to move on to Atlantis.

Tomorrow we head out.

June 5th Update

June 2, 2015

Well we got to Bimini without issue. We got docked and got our golf cart, and immediately went down to Stuarts to get our fix of Conch Salad. Man I missed that.

June 3, 2015

Today we just hung out at the pool and went shopping at the little straw market down in Alice Town. Heather bought a couple of shirts and a hair head band.








When we got back to the boat, and all took showers, I needed to replenish our fresh water. I started the watermaker, and it was running for about five minutes or less when the power went out. This is pretty common on Bimini. However, when I started it back up, I was getting high pressure errors, and water was coming out of every fitting (connection) around the control panel.

I tried to tighten the fittings, but the leaking would just move down line to the next fitting. I finally just had to give up. The first issue is that there would  be no way we could stay two weeks in the Land and Sea Park without water.











June 4 , 2015

Trying not to think about the watermaker, we decided to go dinking and snorkeling. We took the dink out to the Bimini Road (Road to Atlantis). It was a fun snorkel, but I was not too impressed. We then ran the dink over to the Sapona. I was shocked when we got there. The entire top section caved in.  There used to be a rope you could climb and jump off the front. Its all gone. I am not sure if it was a storm or just rusting away.

The snorkeling was really cool. We went around the front of the boat, and got chased back by a shark. Yes a Shark! We then went into the various cavities of the vessel. There were lots of cool fish.

After snorkeling, I decided to send an iMessage to our watermaker installer. He was really zero help. I tried to get it running again, but finally gave up.












June 5, 2015

I stressed a little during the night about the watermaker, but sometimes that helps. I kept thinking that something was obstructing the produced water. When I got up, I decided to see if the post filters were clogged. They were not. But what I realized, is that there was no water in them either. This really made sense to me as the watermaker will not divert water to the tank until it reaches 315 PPM. We were over 500 because of the back pressure. I decided to go ahead and let the produced water in at 500 to see if I could get water to pass into the post filters. Immediately, the watermaker stopped leaking and the pressures dropped to normal. The salinity dropped to 180 PPM which is normal.

What I suspect happened was when the power shut off, the diversion valve was in the process of moving the product to the fresh tank and blocked the discharged water. It is now perfect. Yea!!

After filling the fresh tank, we decided to go to the beach on the north side of the island. I really like the seclusion up there.











What a great day!