For our first full day in Atlantis, we did a little exploring in the morning before finding the grotto pool where we enjoyed the afternoon.
Touring “The Dig” was our plan for this morning. It is basically like Indiana Jones discovering the lost city of Atlantis. The underground tunnels take you through a massive aquarium. Coral, fish, sharks, rays and you name it, it’s probably there. The only thing I didn’t see was an octopus.
After exploring The Dig and aquarium, we checked out the beach side, found a beach bar for lunch the spent the afternoon in the grotto pool.
French was the theme for dinner tonight, at Martinique in the Marina Village. It was such a neat place, we even spent the evening in the bar there after dinner chatting with an engineer from Amazon’s Blue Origin space program.
On the walk back to the boat, we could see a massive fire by the cruise port. It was an apartment complex right down there. Scary looking! Hope everyone is OK.
We departed Rose Island timed to arrive at Atlantis promptly at noon check-in. A call on the VHF radio to Nassau Harbour Control is required for permission to enter the busy port. Similar to air traffic control for planes. We just motored over from Rose Island. It was too busy to try to sail through the harbor. Many sailors try to avoid Nassau. I get it. It’s busy, expensive and has some crime. For us though, it’s the pinnacle of our spring cruise. We’ve been here before on cruise ships, which was super fun but, I always thought how cool it would be to actually sail my own boat over.
First, we needed lunch! And a celebration beer. We hit the harbor side restaurant since it was closest to our boat. It had a view of the cruise ship port where we’ve come in before on the Carnival ships. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to be said for taking a cruise ship here. It’s easy, quick, fun and you get a designated driver. I’ve probably done 20 cruises over the years and have enjoyed every one of them. It’s just that sailing here has been my dream.
The Cruise Ship Port on the Mainland
Atlantis is AMAZING! It’s a cross between a cruise ship, Vegas and a Jules Verne novel. We explored part of the resort today. The vision, architectural design and engineering to create this work of art is incomprehensible. There’s too much to see in one day. I think at least three days are needed to enjoy the place. Four at a leisurely pace.
The Coral Beach side is the first one we happened across since it’s closest to the marina. There are lagoons full of stingrays, sharks and other predators. The first thing you notice here is that everything is over the top!
The theme in this section is predominantly predators. Crossing the swinging rope bridge over shark infested waters, we came upon the Predator Tunnel for an up close view of these sea creatures. As up close as I ever want to be!!! 😯
We had late dinner reservations since we hadn’t expected to get in to the marina for a couple more days, so we found the Dilly Bar which makes craft cocktails. So much fun! Must come back here!
Dinner was at Seafire, the steakhouse in the marina. Filet, local lobster, and a bottle of Cabernet. A little indulgent but we earned it. Probably had 10k steps walking around the place today!
After the late dinner, we took in some of the night life. The night view from the harbor is pretty cool. Then we found a fun little bar in the casino with live music. Those of you from the St Pete area or are otherwise familiar with the Chihuly glass work might recognize the massive chandelier as his work. There’s actually quite a number of his large glass sculptures here.
It was pretty windy and rough this morning. We couldn’t get over to the main reef which was on the windward side of the island. We decided to move the boat to the better anchorage on the leeward side and check out the two reefs there.
They weren’t that impressive. We did see some turtles and coral but no other sea life on this side. There was a small beach that looks like the cruise ship excursions use. However it was low tide when we went so couldn’t get the dinghy too close. We had to wade ashore to explore. On the other side of the beach was a pretty ocean view.
We checked back in with Atlantis and something opened up so we’re heading in tomorrow to stay there through the weekend. The weather forecast for next week doesn’t look too promising for heading back toward Florida. We may be here an additional week. We’ll have to see what shapes up.
