We’re heading off to Nassau so I want to complete our Port Lucaya visit.When I last left you, we had an 8 day cruising permit to stay in the Bahamas in our possession. That is for the whole enchilada! The whole nine yards! The complete set of dishes! All …of…the…Bahamas. Well THAT’S not going to work. Randy and I looked at each other and decided we needed to check on this as soon as possible. But…we have 8 days so we’ll do it tomorrow. We need to finish cleaning up the boat, check email and take a nap.
Up early the next day…well not EARLY…early is different when you’re retired. At least it is for me. That won’t surprise a lot of people that know me. =) Our morning routine, when we’re in a marina or have internet coverage, is that Randy makes the coffee and we sit and read email and the news online. We have breakfast and then start the day. All comfy cozy in the salon of our boat.
On this day, we catch the ferry across to Port Lucaya and climb the stairs to the immigration office. It’s not far away. We dinghy there all the time but our dinghy was still on the davits at this point. We hadn’t put it in the water yet. The ferry is free and the guys are so nice. Everyone here is so friendly and nice. I love that.
Because I didn’t go with Randy when he checked us into the country I hadn’t seen the office. When you come into a new country the routine is that you haul up a yellow quarantine flag on your mast and the courtesy flag of the country your visiting. Only the captain of the boat goes to the immigration office with all crew passports and paperwork to check everyone in. We decided to stay here at the Bahamian Yacht Club
as we were advised that they are very helpful in checking into the country. 
This was true. If you are not in a marina the authorities see your yellow flag and either come out to your boat to check you in or advise the captain to go into the immigration office. The yellow flag shows that you are new in the country. Once you are checked in, you remove the yellow flag but still fly the country’s courtesy flag.Ran and I are in
the immigration office, which is very small. Apparently this is only a satellite office…and out comes this very tall, buffed Bahamian with his dark green uniform on. Looks like a bouncer! And sunglasses. He’s wearing sunglasses. Sunglasses always make you think….”he’s bad.” Holy moly. But he’s very nice…but he’s very somber. To my relief, he says this happens to others but unfortunately he has entered everything into the computer and we have to go to the main office to remedy the situation. He said a couple of days before we leave Lucaya, go to the main office downtown and get an extension. OK. We can do that, sir. Whatever you say, sir. 
Now…clearly, again, I wax dramatically. From the picture attached you’ll see that he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, but tinted regular glasses. And he’s probably not as tall as I imagined since Randy is 5’11”. But it felt like he was enormous and ominous!
“Well, Ran, at least we have 8 days here!” I mark on my computer calendar the exact day we need to get our extension so I don’t forget. I tell ya, if I don’t write it down or put it on my calendar I get lost in the ambience of cruising and forget! Don’t want to forget this one!
In the meantime, in true Kwanesum spirit….we go have a beer. Right away we discover what will turn out to be our Port Lucaya hangout: Rum Runners.
Appropriately named I would say as during the Prohibition period I do believe the rum runners kept this place in the pink! Servicing everyone in the states with their booze/hooch/spirits. 
Of course I step right up and have a pina colada…although the beers are 2 for $5.00. That is a darned good price considering that a case of beer here is $45.00 or more!!! The beer at the marina where we’re staying, and those at the hotels down by the beach, are $5.00 a piece. Even the local beer. The local beers are Kalik and Sands. I think you can get a case of those for a mere $35.00. The liquor, in the liquor store, seems to be about the same price as you can get in the states. And of course, there’s rum (called ron here) to be had by the dozens at a good price. All shapes, sizes and flavors.
We hang out where it’s cheap. At the Port Lucaya Marketplace. I want the fancy drinks. I’m an expensive date. So here I’m the expensive date in the cheap place. Which is not as expensive as an expensive date in the expensive place. The guys behind the bar are so fun. It’s an outside bar so it’s perfect. My fancy drinks are $5.00 each, which I didn’t think was too bad considering the beer at the beach was that price.
Our days in Lucaya are spent mainly waiting for weather. We had hoped to just be here 2 or 3 days; we’ve been here 2 weeks. We walk, we explore, we drink beer, or Ellen drinks Bahama Mamas and Pina Coladas. The expensive date. We dinghy around a bit, though it’s still very chilly for the Bahamas so we wear our jackets. Not what we thought we’d be doing here. We met new friends who were docked near to us. Robyn and Peter on Sequel II. They are from New Zealand. They just sailed their beautiful 60ft boat over from Fort Lauderdale. We had tea (read coffee for Randy and Ellen) with them aboard Sequel. As you can imagine it’s a magnificent boat. We roamed around the Marketplace with them and had cracked conch and fries. Yummo! Reminded me of calamari that I so love.
Robyn and Peter went on ahead to Nassau after a few days. We spent a fun night prior to their departure drinking wine and the ever popular beer on Kwanesum. With their boat having a longer waterline, they are able to ride the rocky seas better than Kwanesum so they took off during the still unsure weather. We have a weather service in the name of Chris Parker that we listen to each morning on the Single Side Band radio. We subscribed to his service so we are able to receive emails from him with weather updates as well as talk to him on the SSB to ask him when the best time of departure would be for our particular upcoming trip. It gives us peace of mind as we are still learning about weather.
So now…it’s the 6th day of our 8 allowable days in the Bahamas. I don’t want to get thrown out of the country so we make our departure for the main immigration office downtown. First we need a cab. No problem mon, cabs are everywhere at the marketplace. We ask the price…$14.00. Ok. What do we know? We don’t know how far it is and we need to be taken to just the right spot. Sounds like an ok price. He ends up being a super nice man. He told us his son is a professor at a university in New York. Randy and he chat away while we ride into town. I guess the town is Lucaya. I don’t think it was Freeport. I forgot to ask him. But it’s not very far away. Oh well. It’s good to have been driven to the right spot. I asked if he would take me to a grocery store, too. As it turns out, the store is right next door to the immigration office so that’s not a problem. He waited for us. All the buildings and surrounding areas look very run down and unkempt. Even the grocery store area. I’m not sure why they don’t fix things up or clean around. It reminded me of areas in Mexico.
Our visit to the immigration office to extend our stay in the Bahamas was pretty uneventful. I know…you’re probably disappointed that there wasn’t more drama which is more typical of me. But it went very smoothly. We just had to wait here, get that form there, go back over there, and wait here. We finally got in to see the main officer and we thought great…they’re going to charge us more money. It cost us $300 cash for the original filing of our forms. But that didn’t happen! We sat in his office for quite some time while he chatted away about the Bahamas and asking about us and where we are going, etc. I’m telling ya these people are nice here! Most of them anyway. We extended our stay until May. He did inform us that when we leave for our son’s wedding in April, leaving our boat in the Bahamas, that we will have to alert the immigration folks there and then check in again when we return. I never thought about that! More of our learning process.
We went to the City Market, which is their supermarket, after we visited immigration. Our cab driver still waiting for us. (I feel like I’m on the Amazing Race... having my cab wait for me, except I’m not arguing with my husband and running from place to place with my backpack flopping all around.) Food is expensive here and not too abundant on the shelves. A gallon of milk is $6.29. A bag of Fritos, which I grabbed on the way to the checkout stand, was $5.49. No more Fritos for me! Apples are $.99 each. We passed. I bought a head of romaine which was $2.79. Bread wasn’t bad, $2.72, but there wasn’t much choice. The racks are pretty bare. I didn’t check meat prices. There wasn’t much available it appeared. Fortunately we stocked up really well before we left Port Canaveral. The dollar and their money are even-steven here so there’s no problem with currency. We previously went to an ATM for cash and it handed out $50 bills instead of the usual $20s and it didn’t charge us any fees! We were surprised about that.
Our driver delivered safely back to Port Lucaya and we were good to go! Why we didn’t have him deliver us right to the marina is beyond me but…we took the ferry back across. A good day, and now we can legally stay in the Bahamas for more than 8 days!
This has been a good place for us to get our feet wet on traveling in the Bahamas. It’s been easy to get around and our facilities here at the marina are A-One. The marina price is fairly reasonable, $1.20/foot. Then we pay $5.00/day for water. (So we’re taking long showers to get our money’s worth.) Marinas in the Bahamas, as a rule, are not cheap so we felt this wasn’t too bad. And it’s been a nice safe place for our boat considering the weather and winds we have had. There is a small place to anchor just adjacent to the marina but the good positions were already staked out anyway.
We had a great super bowl day beginning at Rum Runners. Lots of people milling about and they were setting up big screened TVs all around. We ate conch and chatted with people at the bar. One young man was off a cruise ship he worked on. He was from Malta. We chatted quite a while with a young couple that come here often to fish. Spent the day exchanging stories all around. So fun. We then decided to go back to the marina to watch the super bowl at the bar there since it’s on so damned late on the east coast! We met up with Robyn and Peter and had great fun eating bar food. By then I was drinking water. However, we did smoke our 2 cuban cigars we had purchased. Nice…
We’re off on the next leg of our adventure this Thursday, the 12th. Our weather guru said it’s a good time to go. We will leave about 9:00pm again with Ellen feeling her way out of the marina and into the ocean. I think there will still be a big moon which will help light the way. We will head to White Cay, which is in the Berry Islands. We’re hoping to stay there one or two nights and then head on to Nassau where we’ll meet up with our friends Jack and Marianne aboard GravyBoat. My cousin Deb and her husband Tom, from Nebraska, are meeting us there on the 20th for a couple of days. That will be really fun. They will experience life on Kwanesum, on the hook as they say.
Cheers everyone! We love that you all are enjoying our adventure with us. You are our loyal followers! Til next time….
NOTE, if you haven’t already read it, THE PRECEDING POST HAS AN EDUCATIONAL FLAIR…for your learning enjoyment.
Robyn and Peter went on ahead to Nassau after a few days. We spent a fun night prior to their departure drinking wine and the ever popular beer on Kwanesum. With their boat having a longer waterline, they are able to ride the rocky seas better than Kwanesum so they took off during the still unsure weather. We have a weather service in the name of Chris Parker that we listen to each morning on the Single Side Band radio. We subscribed to his service so we are able to receive emails from him with weather updates as well as talk to him on the SSB to ask him when the best time of departure would be for our particular upcoming trip. It gives us peace of mind as we are still learning about weather.
So now…it’s the 6th day of our 8 allowable days in the Bahamas. I don’t want to get thrown out of the country so we make our departure for the main immigration office downtown. First we need a cab. No problem mon, cabs are everywhere at the marketplace. We ask the price…$14.00. Ok. What do we know? We don’t know how far it is and we need to be taken to just the right spot. Sounds like an ok price. He ends up being a super nice man. He told us his son is a professor at a university in New York. Randy and he chat away while we ride into town. I guess the town is Lucaya. I don’t think it was Freeport. I forgot to ask him. But it’s not very far away. Oh well. It’s good to have been driven to the right spot. I asked if he would take me to a grocery store, too. As it turns out, the store is right next door to the immigration office so that’s not a problem. He waited for us. All the buildings and surrounding areas look very run down and unkempt. Even the grocery store area. I’m not sure why they don’t fix things up or clean around. It reminded me of areas in Mexico.
Our visit to the immigration office to extend our stay in the Bahamas was pretty uneventful. I know…you’re probably disappointed that there wasn’t more drama which is more typical of me. But it went very smoothly. We just had to wait here, get that form there, go back over there, and wait here. We finally got in to see the main officer and we thought great…they’re going to charge us more money. It cost us $300 cash for the original filing of our forms. But that didn’t happen! We sat in his office for quite some time while he chatted away about the Bahamas and asking about us and where we are going, etc. I’m telling ya these people are nice here! Most of them anyway. We extended our stay until May. He did inform us that when we leave for our son’s wedding in April, leaving our boat in the Bahamas, that we will have to alert the immigration folks there and then check in again when we return. I never thought about that! More of our learning process.
We went to the City Market, which is their supermarket, after we visited immigration. Our cab driver still waiting for us. (I feel like I’m on the Amazing Race... having my cab wait for me, except I’m not arguing with my husband and running from place to place with my backpack flopping all around.) Food is expensive here and not too abundant on the shelves. A gallon of milk is $6.29. A bag of Fritos, which I grabbed on the way to the checkout stand, was $5.49. No more Fritos for me! Apples are $.99 each. We passed. I bought a head of romaine which was $2.79. Bread wasn’t bad, $2.72, but there wasn’t much choice. The racks are pretty bare. I didn’t check meat prices. There wasn’t much available it appeared. Fortunately we stocked up really well before we left Port Canaveral. The dollar and their money are even-steven here so there’s no problem with currency. We previously went to an ATM for cash and it handed out $50 bills instead of the usual $20s and it didn’t charge us any fees! We were surprised about that.
Our driver delivered safely back to Port Lucaya and we were good to go! Why we didn’t have him deliver us right to the marina is beyond me but…we took the ferry back across. A good day, and now we can legally stay in the Bahamas for more than 8 days!
This has been a good place for us to get our feet wet on traveling in the Bahamas. It’s been easy to get around and our facilities here at the marina are A-One. The marina price is fairly reasonable, $1.20/foot. Then we pay $5.00/day for water. (So we’re taking long showers to get our money’s worth.) Marinas in the Bahamas, as a rule, are not cheap so we felt this wasn’t too bad. And it’s been a nice safe place for our boat considering the weather and winds we have had. There is a small place to anchor just adjacent to the marina but the good positions were already staked out anyway.
We had a great super bowl day beginning at Rum Runners. Lots of people milling about and they were setting up big screened TVs all around. We ate conch and chatted with people at the bar. One young man was off a cruise ship he worked on. He was from Malta. We chatted quite a while with a young couple that come here often to fish. Spent the day exchanging stories all around. So fun. We then decided to go back to the marina to watch the super bowl at the bar there since it’s on so damned late on the east coast! We met up with Robyn and Peter and had great fun eating bar food. By then I was drinking water. However, we did smoke our 2 cuban cigars we had purchased. Nice…
We’re off on the next leg of our adventure this Thursday, the 12th. Our weather guru said it’s a good time to go. We will leave about 9:00pm again with Ellen feeling her way out of the marina and into the ocean. I think there will still be a big moon which will help light the way. We will head to White Cay, which is in the Berry Islands. We’re hoping to stay there one or two nights and then head on to Nassau where we’ll meet up with our friends Jack and Marianne aboard GravyBoat. My cousin Deb and her husband Tom, from Nebraska, are meeting us there on the 20th for a couple of days. That will be really fun. They will experience life on Kwanesum, on the hook as they say.
Cheers everyone! We love that you all are enjoying our adventure with us. You are our loyal followers! Til next time….
NOTE, if you haven’t already read it, THE PRECEDING POST HAS AN EDUCATIONAL FLAIR…for your learning enjoyment.
