Sight Seeing in Nassau; Then to West Bay, New Providence Island

We stocked up on non-perishables and alcohol at the supermarket and liquor store just a 10 minute walk from the harbor.  What a luxury it was to see to see such a selection once again. Sarah had a hard time passing up buying fresh fruits and veggies (we can’t buy much because we’ll be leaving for NYC in 2 days) but we got some more mango beer (called Radlers made by Kalik - a Bahamian brewery) and  a case of ‘Sands’ beer (an appropriately named Bahamian brew) so we were feeling pretty good.  After unloading our purchases, we set out to see Nassau. The only ‘sight’ we wanted to see was the Rum Cake factory on E. Bay Street which happened to open at 9 am on Sunday morning (what luck!).  We walked past many derelict, abandoned, or fire destroyed buildings, en route to the rum cake factory where we sampled a few of the many different varieties of Bahamian rum cakes.  Pina Colada, chocolate, pineapple, coconut, and even the original (plain) were all very good, but not worthy of the inflated prices.

Some nice old architecture hidden in Nassau

Then we walked to the ‘Queen’s Staircase’ a few blocks back from the harbor that had been cut into the rock by slaves.  A non-functional waterfall was adjacent to the staircase and the stairs led to the top of a hill where the small Fort Fincastle was located.  Atop the hill, we got a great view of the cruise ships in port and worked our way through the narrow street where local vendors were pushing their wares on the cruise ship tourists killing time while docked in Nassau for the day.

The Queen's Staircase

Bahamian Police in traditional uniforms near the cruise lines

Continuing on, we stopped in the famous straw market where women were selling identical straw items embellished with the same ‘Hello Kitty’, ‘Disney’s Ariel’ or similar motifs, on displayed from the floor to 7 or 8 feet in height.  It was like Boston’s Haymarket on steroids.  In walking past the high end shops,  a young woman promised to make Harry look years younger in minutes if he'd let her apply some skin cream to his face.  So the cream went on under his eyes and it did seem to remove a few eye bags. She did her best to sell us a jar of skin cream but at $350 a bottle (and that was the special half-price deal), Harry decided looking his age wasn’t so bad after all.
The day was slipping by and we had some distance to sail in order to get to West Bay on the western side of New Providence Island so around 2:30 pm we hauled anchor. We selected to stop in West Bay as we've arranged to leave Juno for three days in Coral Harbour (just 5 miles south and east of West Bay and we want to arrive in Coral Harbor on Monday) while we fly up to NYC to attend Sally’s PhD thesis defense.  It so was uplifting to be out of Nassau proper and to enjoy the quiet in West Bay.