The winds surged and eased all night long, eventually the surging diminished over time and the easing increased. By morning (7:30 am) the winds had reduced to 8 – 10 knots with gusts to 18. Knowing that our crossing of Northwest Channel today would be cold we opted for a Hot & Harty freeze dried meal 
that we split. The breakfast did its job… lit a little furnace down below. It was cold and I dug out all of my ‘northern’ cloths, long johns, socks, long jeans, t-shirt, sweat shirt, foul weather jibs, foul weather jacket, and wool watch cap. Remind me again, this is the Bahamas, right? With great joy the anchor windless worked flawlessly, it lifted the anchor with no assistance from me. WA… HOO… finally! There was a sailboat anchored when we arrived in the shallow creek and in the time we spent together I never saw a single soul, not ever as I motor down the narrow channel leaving.
As we existed the shallow channel into the depths of Northwest Channel I set the sails, the winds were 10-15 knots with gusts to 20, the seas were 2 – 4-foot with stacked swells of 6 – 7-foot every 20 seconds, the swells hit the boat on the aft port quarter and we did some rocking especially when the 6–7-footer showed up. With the sails set though we averaged 6 to 7 knots and made the crossing in about 5 ½ hours. Enroute to Nassau we overheard a sailboat behind us talking to a trawler on the radio, they were on a collision course and the sailboat captain wanted to know if the trawler captain was aware of his sailboat. One of the questions was ‘are you headed to Nassau’ from the sailboat to the trawler. The answer was no. But that got me thinking… The previous night I searched for a marina to stay at for the night in Nassau, we had a number of things that just had to happen before we left for the Exumas and Highbourne Cay, being in a slip was the way to go. The engine oil needed changing as did the oil filter, we needed to do laundry, we needed to shower (some of us more than the other. Not saying any names)… a shower with unlimited hot water would be fabulous, we needed to shop for groceries, and I needed more engine oil for future oil changes. AND maybe the most important thing was that I was craving junk food, I hadn’t smelled a hamburger or pizza in weeks and I was in serious withdrawal. But after hours of looking, I could not find any marina options other then a super high-end marina at $6.00 per foot, that $192.00 for a slip for our sized boat, plus 12% VAT tax, plus $45 per night for electric, and $30 per night for water. Then there was the extras, cable TV, satellite TV and radio, pooper pump-out, breakfast, lunch, dinner at the marina’s exclusive restaurant. Ah,..no. I had no idea where we were going to end up before I left, I figured I’d arrive and see what’s available when we got there.
Listening to the conversation between the sailboat and the trawler gave me an idea… after the two of them stopped talking I waited from about a minute and got on the radio. Serendipity, Serendipity, Serendipity, Aine (this is normal hailing protocol), Serendipity answered and I said ‘channel 72’, he replied ‘72’ (hail on channel 16 and then move to a working channel, that what all that meant), I switched to 72 and said Serendipity this is Aine. He replied and I told him ‘I overheard your conversation with the trawler, I’m about 5 miles ahead of you and heading to Nassau, have you been able to find a marina slip? He said that all the marina’s were full and they were going to anchor out by Sand Island. I said thank you for the info. Honestly it’s hard for me to believe all the slips in Nassau harbor are full, so I discounted the sailboat captain assessment of the situation.
Once we got closed enough for our cell phones to work, I started internet searching again, found a reasonably priced slip, called and reserved the slip. Done. We entered Nassau harbor using the cruise ship entrance, there were 6 huge cruise ships in port when we arrived. I have never sailed my boat past so many huge ships at the same time, there’re like little mountains. We found the marina, Nassau Yacht Haven, and docking went flawlessly, the marina sent a dock hand to assist us. While Sarah showered, I changed the oil in the engine, then I showered, Sarah started the laundry and we went upstairs to the Poop Deck Restaurant. OMG, I haven’t eaten that much in weeks. But it was Heavenly.
We will awaken early tomorrow and walk to the grocery store (opens at 7 am and its about a 10 minute walk we were told), food shop, walk next door to the auto parts store for the oil and filter and then take a taxi back to the marina, stow everything and get underway.
Breakfast – [MJS & Sarah] ½ pouch of Chicken & Pasta + ½ pouch of Chicken & Rice, Tea, Lunch – [MJS & Sarah] None, Dinner – [MJS] Loaded Cheese Burger, French Fries, Cole Slaw, (2) Sands (Bahamian Beer), [Sarah] Shrimp Scampi, Green Beans, Bahamian Mac & Cheese.