Wake up early one mornin’Kiss my momma goodbye.
Goin’ back to da island
Don’t worry momma don’t cry.
Dwang d’ dwang d’ dwang dwang dwang
Dwanggg, dwanggg, dwanggg……
Everybody now......Dwang d’ dwang d’ dwang dwang dwang Dwanggg, dwanggg, dwanggg……
…as taught to me by Mike Thompson, our island tour guide and Bahama native. (I asked him to teach me a native song while we were driving around the island.)
Before I get into Nassau, Part Deux, I must digress to the wonderful trip we had to CA for 3 weeks. Then…back to da island.
As I’ve said before, Randy and I purposely stayed in Nassau longer than we intended so that we could fly easily back to CA and enjoy our family and the wonderful wedding of our youngest son Skip. It was the best place to leave Kwanesum. And it was easy…other than the flight out…which was fraught with delays. FRAUGHT! But …we had a good price on our tickets and we allowed plenty of time, so we can overlook that one. The trip back, other than being a redeye, was a snap. Actually almost felt like home, coming back to Nassau. That means we’ve been here too long! Of course our boat feels like home…but we get to take her everywhere we go anyway. Nice. I like that part a lot. LOVE our bed. Ahhhh…..Everyone took good care of Kwanesum while we were gone: Peter, the Greek and Dudley, the Bahamian...our main men. She was just as we left her, making us glad, again, we decided to remain in Nassau.
What a great 3 weeks in CA. The first week was spent with…quick-find-a-mother-of-the-groom-dress and quick-find-a-step-dad-of-the-groom-suit….complete with shoes and bangles for me… dress shirt and tie and shoes for Ran….Perfect! To make the process very Fresno-appropriate, in the separate stores we chose to find our clothes, we both encountered wonderful Armenian ladies that put the whole outfits together! What a hoot! We’re ready to go! Decked out to the nines. Now… a couple of doctor visits to check on why Randy’s cold wasn’t going away and making appointments for a shingles shot. Don’t want to get that! OK…that’s done. ‘Twas no big deal, so on to other chores. (We try to get all medical stuff done whenever we’re in town anyway.) Now over to the accountant to get our taxes done…need to file in VA, CA and with the good ole US of A. Oh yay. We get money back from everyone except…you guessed it… Cal-i-for-ni-a! Such is the way. A whirlwind first week that culminated in Randy going up to visit his mom in Oregon. He wasn’t able to get to her during Christmas because the weather was so bad, so off he went for a few days. It was a good visit, which included his brother, Rollin. Randy and Rollie were able to situate their mother and her dog Puck in a wonderful new home where she’ll be living in the luxury of meals taken care of and housekeeping services. And she can beat everyone at cards! A relief for Randy and Rollie.
While Randy was up in Oregon, I got a good dose of Austin and Ella.
Austin is 3 ½ and Ella is 8 months. 
Can’t get enough of those two! I then rented a car and drove over to Gustine to help with the wedding planning in whatever way I could. My good friends Carol and Bill Martens have a sweet little apartment adjacent to their home in Gustine and they graciously let me use it for my stay…my own little B & B. It was so perfect and I can’t thank them enough for their generosity. 
It’s located next to their house, so I got lots of visiting with them, and is also next door to my dear friends Patty and Louie Spinazze. 
As it turns out, the weekend of Easter landed when I was in Gustine and Louie had his 70th birthday party on the Saturday before! How fun was that?!! The celebration took place at the Gustine Gun Club, which for me was like a reunion. 
My 3 kids practically grew up there, as the ranch we lived on was just down the road. All of our kids were able to make the party so it was a definite reunion for them, too. We danced and carried on…for hours! I enjoyed a great Easter with Skip, Kim and Kai at Kim’s mom and dad’s. Kai is our new grandson who is 4 years old! He is sooo darling! These are the BEST people. I’m so happy for Skip.On to the wedding.
It was wonderful. Small, intimate and perfect. Weddings are so fun. All the people you love attend. There were people I hadn’t seen in years. Skip and Kim pledged their vows….promised to love each other, even during football season…=)… and Skip promised to love Kai as his own. “I now pronounce you, man and wife!” Skip picked up Kai…they walked back down the aisle… together as a family....the celebrating began! 
We laughed and cried and danced and had wonderful food and beverages. The 2 little guys, Austin and Kai, looked like angels in their ‘gorilla suits’, but couldn’t wait to put on their regular clothes and play in the bocce ball court. Perfect place for little guys while the adults danced and carried on. What a wonderful evening. 
It’s always so hard for me to leave everyone, but we got on our redeye…back to Nassau and Kwanesum. Ready for further travels south.
Now to Nassau, Part Deux. When I last left you in Nassau, we had just moved in to the Harbor Club marina to park Kwanesum for our trip to CA. We had gone in early due to weather and tiring at anchor. It would be our last marina for a long time so we took advantage.
The weather continued to be so, so and we continued to rock, even in the marina! But at least we could rest well knowing no one would park too close and drag into us. Ahhh…peace. Our friends Jack and Marianne found a weather window and went on south. Marc remained at anchor in Nassau preparing his boat for his trip south. In the meantime…we had some fun.
We wanted to explore more of Nassau so decided to walk to see Fort Charlotte.
We asked Marc if he’d like to go, and one of the greatest days ever was begun. Fort Charlotte was quite a walk from where we were so Marc called his friend Mike Thompson who lives in Nassau to see if he wanted to go along and be our chauffeur. 
We’ll buy the gas and the beer! We met him down at the Texaco station and piled in his funky Suzuki jeep vehicle. Perfect way to site see! He dropped us off at the Fort and we made plans to meet him for lunch at the Cricket Club, which was just down the hill. 
Yes…they play cricket in the Bahamas, though I never saw them playing. The Club was great, casual and not too expensive. (The Fort was amazing, by the way.) We immediately ordered gin and tonics and toasted. It was so hot this day that the drinks were seriously quenching. Had a really good lunch, Mike joined us, and then we were off on our tour of the island. First…a stop for beer/water/ice for the cooler. Pop open a beer and we drive off. Can’t do that in good ole US of A! Mike drove us all over the place. Down the other end of New Providence from where we’re staying, to the area that is a little more ritzy. Big hotels down there, too. Compass Point Resort 
was gorgeous. Saw a wonderful little out of the way place that was very romantic, A Stones Throw Away. 
Highly recommend it. Drove out to Lyford Cay where some definite ritzy places are. 
Did I mention what a gorgeous day it was?! Couldn’t have been more perfect. Drove on to I-can't-think-of-the-name point where Mike decided to jump in…30 feet down. OK…go ahead. 
Now the other 2 guys had to decide if that’s what THEY wanted to do. It’s actually a beautiful spot. Crystal clear water…but it’s a long way down. Mike had obviously done this BBQ before. The 2 amigos, Randy and Marc, prepare themselves to jump. Mike swims around, climbs up and gets ready to jump again. 
The 2 amigos are still deciding. Had a lot of beer, you know…not quite as young as I once was, you know….it’s a long way down there, you know…and then you have to swim around to get out, you know…not sure how far that is since we can’t see where Mike climbs out, you know…I’m a strong swimmer, but…you know…maybe next time. More beer please and off to the next destination. (I would have done it, but…you know.)From there we drove around to a cool place where they kept horses
and had a neat nursery with lots of fresh veggies and a little funky store that reminded me of places in Oregon or Napa. We fed some carrots to the horse. Love those kind of places. Then on to a bar on Sand Dollar Beach, I think it was... for, you guessed it…more beer and some hors d’oeuvres. 
There we met another friend of Marc’s who was just delightful. He lives over on that side of the island. A British fellow that had done a LOT of sailing…even on tall ships, which is very cool. He’s a contractor and very busy here and there. Nice conversation. He mentioned Quiz Nite at the Green Parrot and we decided to do that. It was getting on to evening so why the heck not! 
Got to the GP and we needed more people on our Quiz team. Wasn’t long until the 2 handsome single guys found some good looking girls to fill in our team. What a hoot! We did pretty well I think, but we didn’t win. But we thought we were very smart. Fun time. After all is said and done, Ran and I were tired and Mike took us back to the boat. It was a long day. Mike and Marc? On to Hammer Heads to continue the night. We can’t keep up with that bunch. What a fun, fun day.
And now we wait to leave for CA. But we had a fun, surprise encounter with our boating buddies Al and Monica! 
They stopped in Nassau on their way home to Canada and surprised us in the grocery store. What a fun, fun thing to see them there! Well, this calls for some do-stuff-days so we started with a bite to eat at the Poop Deck…next day walked down town. I wore my pedometer to see how far the walk was, so we thought a good thing to do would be to stop for a beer every mile we walked. Worked out really well! It was a 5 mile trek total. =) Then back to the boat where Al cooked up some lobster that he had caught on his southern trip. Soooo good. Sooo fun to see them. Way too short a visit. We’re hoping to catch up with these 2 again. Even if we have to fly to find them somewhere! Our kind of people.Our dear friends Speedy and Nancy also came back through Nassau on their way back home. They had been further south and also had great luck getting lobster and conch. We so enjoy being with them. We had a wonderful dinner across the bay at the Columbus Tavern. What a great place.
Before Nancy flew home and Speedy took the boat back up to Deltaville, VA they decided to stay 2 nights in the marina at Atlantis. 
They asked if we would help crew the boat in and then we could have passes to see the back side of Atlantis. Speedy had a crew coming in to help him take the boat north so before they arrived we indulged in their offer and helped Speedy slip the boat neatly in their berth at Atlantis. While they relaxed by the pool we explored the rest of Atlantis. What a great place! Of course we stopped to have an adult beverage…Kalik for Randy and a Pina Colada for me! 
Why not? There is so much to see back there: a wonderful aquarium, a zillion pools for kids and adults, water slides, an area where you can swim with the dolphins, wonderful beach spots, bars everywhere. And it was a perfect day. We should have brought our swim suits! Duhhhh. We said goodbye to Nance, and Speedy ‘speeded’ us back to our boat in his dinghy. We will miss these good, good people and hope to catch up with them again one day.Then it was just me and Ran. The duo. Waiting for our flight to CA.
This post will end here and I’ll pick up on our trip south in the next post. Hopefully it won’t take me so long to get to it!! Right now I’m sitting at anchor in Georgetown trying to catch up on this post. Ran just dinghy’d in to town to get more water and diesel to prepare for the trip ahead. I have to watch my time on the computer because we can’t use too much electricity. And I’ve run the battery down on both computers. =) I’ve got one plugged into the little inverter, but for only an hour. It uses a lot of juice. I do love my computers. I miss not having all-access when I want.
Stay tuned for further adventures of our trip south from Nassau.
