The Bahamas 2021 - Day 2. El abominable turista de las 9

I woke up early in the morning and headed for downtown by the simple subterfuge of taking bus 15 to the end of the line. And then what? As my Mom used to joke, when you try to start being a tourist at 9 am there is really not a lot to see. My list included the zoo (alas, closed until Friday), the Botanical Gardens (alas, closed due to Covid), and Perpall Tract National Park inside the city. I asked at the Botanical Gardens how to get to the latter, since in my map they seem to be adjoining each other, but the people there just looked at me with a blank expression; however, Maggie sprung into action and intent on helping this clueless tourist drove me around the area in her Nissan Cube (the most popular car in The Bahamas) while chatting up a storm. We never found the national park, but I once again had the chance to enjoy Bahamian good nature and hospitality. I was also reminded that here they drive on the wrong side of the road.

Museums? Closed. Churches? Closed. Diamond jewelry? Open for business in every shape and form but with no customers! Covid has really devastated the tourist industry of Nassau.

I got back to my beautiful residence at noon, took one last look at my cozy habitat, and with some regret said goodbye to my hostess Carla. Onward to the next stage of my trip! By staying in contact with my hostess in Andros Island I had determined that the best way to get there was by taking the Mailboat, which I doubt carries any mail but does the transport of people and merchandise between the islands, so last night I had spent time in the internet finding what little I could about the place where the ship was docked and the time of departure (all very vague, with reports of departure at 3 pm, 4 pm, and 5 pm). Note to self: Better be there at 3 pm.

I took the trusty bus 15 to downtown, walked a couple of blocks to take bus 1 to Mackey St., and using an almost invisible lane gained access to Potter’s Cay, which is the working dock of Nassau. To the north across the channel is Paradise Island, where the super resorts are located (I never went there, but Carla told me that they were mostly empty due to Covid).

I hadn’t had lunch, and the narrow street to the cay was lined with little eateries, so I chose one with a dining room open to the water, and had a most delicious lunch of conch fritters and ice-cold Sands beer (the two brands of Bahamian beer are Sands and Kalik). The fritters were absolutely delicious, although more batter than conch (conch, pronounced konk, is the snail that inhabits the giant coiled shells that you can blow as trumpets). Thus fortified I went to look for my ship, although by now I was pretty sure I was way too early by being there precisely at 3 pm.

Potter’s Cay was a real experience, because in many ways it is a throwback to the times of the ships of sail. Sure, things are brought by truck and rest on pallets, but after that it is the stevedores who do all the work. You still see cranes lifting bundles of merchandise into the hold of ships, or forklifts running around wildly stacking merchandise to dizzying heights. It is all very colorful, but the overall aspect of the ships is a little distressing; they look old, decrepit, and overstrained. But surely The Mailboat in the website looked like a modern roll-on roll-off ship. When I got to the end of the cay, where the Lady Rosalind was docked, I could barely believe my eyes: it was the most incredible rust bucket I have ever seen. The hull had been patched many times with steel plates welded (with rust?) here and there, and I was convinced that today was going to be its last day before joining hundreds of sunken ships in the Caribbean!

Let me make a brief interlude here to recall that, as my flight was descending into the Nassau airport, I was amazed at the incredible clarity of the turquoise sea, the underwater shoals, and ... now what are those white things? ... they are big ... goodness gracious, they are sharks! And if you can see them from a jetliner you know they are really, really, big sharks.

Going back to the Lady Rosalind, I had visions of sinking among bales of merchandise, hanging for dear life to a pallet, and seeing the triangular fins circling around me. Well, nothing ventured nothing gained I thought as I stepped on the gangway, but one of the guys shouted at me that I was in the wrong ship. He then pointed to the President Taylor, which would be best described as a tramp steamer, with plenty of rust streaks on it but a significantly more seaworthy appearance. I sighed with relief. But the deck was almost empty ... they were just beginning to load, so there was no way they could depart any earlier than 8 pm!

I spent the next 5 hours walking through Potter’s Cay, soaking in the color and music of a busy port, and from time to time going back to my boat to see the captain (who is also the top forklift operator) put together his cargo with the dexterity of a Tetris Grand Champion. There was not a wasted spot, and of course the passengers, most of who arrived between 6 and 7 pm, had to squeeze themselves between tall stacks of merchandise, cars, containers, gas trucks, and the odd boat. My favorite was when the cap brought a car in between the tines of his forklift, lifted it high in the air, and spinning on a dime deposited it on top of a container (a feat he repeated on two more occasions!).

I went back to my shack for a tasty conch salad and another round of beers around 6 pm, and eventually settled myself in the middle of a tiny clearing among pallets, together with a bunch of kids, for the 4-hour ride to Andros. We didn’t start until 10 pm, so our ETA at Andros was going to be around 2 am. But to me this is what adventuring is all about, so I am in heaven :)