Nassau, Bahamas. It’s not one of my favorite places. I guess it’s fun if you’re staying in one of the fancy resorts, but being in Nassau on a boat in the main harbor is another story. We were only going to be there for two nights. We needed groceries, and we considered hanging around Atlantis for a day. But we felt that paying $100 per person for the privilege of laying by the pool was a bit steep.
We heard about a new marina called The Pointe. It’s a Margaritaville property with a beautiful resort. Our friends said it was “a bit rolly”, so they left and anchored out. But it was pretty, new docks, great pool, and $45 per night; enough to convince us to stay two nights.
There was this weird current, though. We were bouncing around our slip like a pinball. The dockhand said they were working on a seawall, and the current shifts should slow down soon. We believed him. So we hung around by the pool, then went for a lovely dinner.
When we came back to the boat that night, the current shifts were worse. We were tied up next to OliLuki. We had all nine of our fenders out, plus we had borrowed one from them. We were using 10 docklines like a huge spider web. The lines were being stretched to what we thought was their limit. At 4:30AM we went outside to check things out. Turns out all the other boaters there were already discussing when to get off the roller coaster. After a sleepless night of squeaking, groaning, snapping, banging and being tossed around (no, there was nothing fun about it), one fender (our newest and most expensive of course,) was flattened, three dock lines had severe chafe, one of our cleats was loose, and there was a gouge the size of my thumb in the toe rail (see the picture). We bugged out early in the morning with the help of four people on the dock and the dock master telling us, “oh, I don’t know anything about weird currents.”
“Yeah, then why did your dock hand tell us yesterday you were building a seawall to help with the crazy current?!?!?”
After much complaining, we got our money back. It was only $45, but the point was they knew there was a problem. And they lied about it. I hate that.
We won’t be going back there any time soon. Maybe they’ll build that seawall someday, but until then, Jimmy Buffet would not be happy, I can guarantee it.
March 2021