Nassau and Atlantis!

1.16.11

Well, we never re-anchored, just pulled in some line so we were more out of the way. We also met up with our friends on “Quality Time”, who had gone to a marina for the evening to wait out the front. They generously allowed us to dinghy over to their boat and tie up alongside, thus alleviating our problem of finding dinghy dockage on that side of the city (a difficult feat!). They allowed us to traipse in and out of their boat all day as we ran our errands. We also joined them for lunch at a local restaurant, the Poop Deck. It was a great day and we got a lot accomplished thanks to them!
The next day, since we were still having trouble with our macerator, we knew we needed to be pumped out. Unfortunately, the only marina that did pumpouts in Nassau was Atlantis. Dagger. Although it was expensive, we decided we would splurge and head in for the day to enjoy the resort and empty our holding tanks.
Atlantis is AMAZING!! We stayed in the cheapest slips available which are a long trek from the marina office and an even longer trek from the actual resort. But, never fear, they have golf carts that pick you up and take you anywhere on the resort you want to go! So we were escorted up to the office, where we checked in and got our resort map. We were pumped out and ready to have some serious fun by 1300. We had another golf cart ride up to the casino – my first trip to a casino ever! We had to walk through to get to the water park (of course), so I insisted that we play the slots. We pulled the arm 5 times and walked away with...nothing. Ah well, easy come, easy go!
We continued through to the water park, walking through the grand hotel lobby. There are 8 pools on the property, two lazy rivers and over 10 waterslides! It was chilly that day, but after some nagging from Brad I sucked it up and got in anyway. We had a blast! There was even a waterslide that took you through a tube through the shark tank! It was amazing! We also did the Aquarium, which was great too. There was a walk-through tube that took you through the tank, we even had some sharks swim over us. And there were two huge manta rays!! They were beautiful!
That night, we went back to the casino and I learned how to play BlackJack – I was even pretty good at it! I had Brad on one side telling me what to do and a kid from St. Pete on my other side telling me what he thought I should do. Between the two of them, I made my own decisions and came out on top! It is very overwhelming; so many people, bright lights everywhere and the noise of the slot machines and chips. It is easy to see how people get so caught up in that atmosphere.
We enjoyed the water park and casino so much the first night that we decided to stay a second night! A bit expensive and not in the budget, but who can have a budget when they are on vacation?! We spent another day at the water parks and loved every second of it!! That night we watched the Ravens lose pitifully to the Steelers and then gambled a bit more!
We had a blast and would have stayed forever if we were rich, but alas, it was time to return to anchoring. We filled our tanks and went back to our trusty Northern anchorage, this time making sure we were safely out of the channel.