Bob:

We awakened in time to get on deck and see the sun rise from the see just off the coast from Nassau. It appeared that the Altantica was hove-to and waiting for daylight to steam the last mile or two into the harbor. As we slowly approached the dock we saw a couple of nice beaches on the starboard side and some ruins that looked like they might be an old fort or something that we visited later that day.

As we approached the center of the town, which was right next to the dock, we saw two cruise ships already moored there, the Norwegian Cruise Lines Sky and the Carnival Fantasy. Although we didn't recognize the name, the Sky looked vaguely familiar. Then we both remarked how the fancy paintings of the flowers on the bow reminded us of a Hawaiian lei, and that in turn reminded us of the name of the ship when we had sailed on it around the Hawaiian Islands (it was then called the "Pride of Aloha"--see Wanderung 16). I also tested out my new GPS and, much to my surprise, found that it not only had the Bahamas on the map, it also had the detailed street-level map of Nassau. Pleased to have that information available, I decided to take it along on our walk.

Monika:

Bob:

Since Monika had never been to Nassau and I was last there almost 50 years ago, we decided to spend the morning making a walking tour of the city. We disembarked around 8:30 and found an information center in the cruise ship terminal that gave us a really great paper map of both the downtown area, the beaches, and the entire island. Outside, we worked our way through the gaggle of local entrepreneurs vying for our business before turning right onto the main street bordering the harbor, eponymously named Bay Street.

First we ambled westward on a short promenade until we reached "Mr. Frogs", some kind of a bar complex that we had seen from our ship, at which point we jogged inland a block to continue on the main traffic thoroughfare. Shortly thereafter we found the beaches we had seen on our way into port and they were just opening up for business, so to speak. No one was in the water, but the day was heating up rapidly and I began to regret that we had not brought our swimsuits along. I also began to regret not stopping to purchase some bottled water at the grocery store we had seen on our way through town.

Monika:

Bob:

We saw signs on the highway for Fort Charlotte, but we didn't know how far off it was. So I fired up the GPS and found Fort Charlotte on the list of local attractions, and fortunately it was only another half a mile further on. Thank goodness we had the GPS, however, as it guided us up the hill and then to the right whereas my instinct would have been to continue straight down the coastal highway.

Admission to the fort was $5 for foreigners ($3 for Seniors), and the tour guide who escorted us around clearly expected to be tipped for his efforts. In my opinion, however, the set of informational plaques and exhibits in the fort was quite thorough, so you could probably do just as well without the guide if you were willing to spend the time to read and absorb all the printed information.

The fort had been constructed in the 1790s after the British had lost the War of the Rebellion with the American colonies. With the loss of the American ports, the port at Nassau assumed increasing importance and the fort guarded the entrance to the harbor and thus the city. Laboriously carved out of the coral limestone by local workers and slaves, the exterior walls and dry moat of the fort had been covered by what looked to me to be concrete, although that could have happened at any point during the 100 years or so of active service life it had enjoyed.

Unfortunately the Nassau area was plagued by tropical diseases and fevers, so the mortality for the troops stationed there was astonishingly high, almost 50% for the first brigades of British troops. That kind of mortality makes fighting units ineffective, so the British army came up with the idea of staffing the fort with British troops recruited from Africa, which in fact cut the death rate from yellow fever and so forth in half. However, the cold-blooded way the Army purchased 2,000-4,000 slaves from Africa to serve as troops just before the 1807 prohibition on slave trading took effect, just curdled my blood. However, the one bright side of that unhappy story is that Nassau was never in fact invaded, so the guns of Fort Charlotte never fired a shot in anger.

Monika:

Bob:

Although the fort's dungeons and powder rooms were underground and therefore nicely cool, when we came back outside at the end of the tour we really started getting hot and sweaty. So we purchased a couple of cool bottles of water ($1 each for the 16-oz. size), and started our walk back into town. Once we hit the downtown section, however, we continued straight down the main strait, detouring over to the large, tent-covered marketplace beside Mr. Frogs. Many items of craftwork displayed there were quite nice, but knowing how tightly packed my suitcase had been dissuaded me from purchasing anything. I did, however, break down and purchase two bottles of Coke Classic made with real sugar at the grocery store, and Monika purchased two bottles of the local beer at a nearby liquor store.

Chucking the bottles into Monika's backpack, we continued down the main street of town, which was mostly lined with tourist-oriented stores such as jewelry boutiques clothing stores, souvenir stores, and so forth. Monika picked up another free charm from the Diamonds International store to add to her charm bracelet. As we passed through a very pretty square in the center of town, we encountered a plethora of sidewalk vendors also selling arts, crafts, and tourist geegaws. Suddenly I spied a unique Bahamanian calendar like one we had purchased on Princess Cay during a previous cruise. Each month has a hand-painted scene in watercolor style, plus a recipe for some kind of local food dish. We had both really enjoyed that one, and I was pleased to find both the 2011 and 2012 calendars for $15. Talking to the saleslady, I found out she was an in-law of the local artist who did those calendars, so I gave her my compliments to relay to the artist! We continued walking to the other side of town until around noon when, hot, thirsty, and tired, we returned to the ship.

Monika:

Bob:

After a well-deserved lunch with plenty of iced tea (I am an American, after all), we returned to our cabin to put our feet up for a couple of hours. I was tired enough to fall asleep, but Monika still had enough energy to pop back out to take pictures of the Atlantica's departure from Nassau that afternoon. When we were well out to sea around 3:30 p.m. we had the mandatory life boat drill, although it took a bit longer since all instructions were repeated in Italian, French, Spanish, German, and English---Costa is a European cruise line, of course, and the multi-linguality helps accommodate all their potential customers. Judging by the conversations I overheard whilst walking around deck, in fact, I think over half of passengers on our ship were Germans plus a smattering of other Europeans such as Italians, Dutch, and so forth.

That evening we met our tablemates for the first time, and they seemed to be a quite decent lot. Our table for 12 had 4 American and 1 Dutch couple, who fortunately spoke some English so that we could all converse quite easily. The cuisine was good, but the service was quite slow, so in typical European fashion the meal lasted from 6:15 to 8:30 or so. That is typical for southern European cultures, so in one sense I was not really surprised, but I had not yet relaxed into the rhythm of the cruise and was a bit frustrated by it all. Both Monika and I were happy, however, that the portions were smaller than on many other cruise lines, which allowed us to finish the food served for each course without the guilt of either eating too much or causing food to be thrown away. Still somewhat tired from the hours of walking in the morning, we kind of collapsed into bed after dinner and read our respective books until it was time to turn in for the night

Monika: