Nassau photos.
Swiftwing
Wed 29 Apr 2009 23:00
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We have now spent so long in Nassau that
we have joined, The Nassau Yacht Club. For a small membership fee we are able to
use their dinghy dock, swimming pool, excellent restaurant and other
facilities. It is twinned with, The Miami Yacht Club so we use their
facilities too.
The front of our new club.
 The crew of this Star dinghy won a
gold at the Olympics.
 A couple of the local racing workboats.
One of this class sank at the turning mark when leading the pack at the George
Town Regatta last week.
 Looking across towards Paradise Island, a
bit like Disneyland for adults. The Atlantis Hotel has 2,500 rooms,
17 restaurants, 11 swimming pools, a casino and a huge aquarium. The island was
originally called, Hogs Island and was used by the locals for picnics, but when
it was sold for development I suppose that the original name would not
have endeared itself to American tourists.
 Looking down on Potters Cay, from the
bridge. All the imports for the Bahamas (35% import duty thank
you) come in here by ship and are then transferred to smaller ferries and
cargo boats for the smaller islands. This is looking down on the
fishing quay which was really busy and reminded me of Peterhead
in the seventies.
 Looking East from the top of the bridge -
paid for by the developers of Paradise Island- towards our anchorage at Montague
Fort.
 Looking across towards the hotels and
condominiums on Paradise Island. We didn't bother going much further and
returned to historical downtown Nassau.
 Parliament Buildings with Queen Victoria
to the front.
 Public Library in the grounds of the
parliament buildings.
 War memorial to the fallen of WW1 and
WWII. All the buildings in the city centre were colonial and have been lovingly
maintained.
 Looking back on the parliament buildings
from the library.
 Looking towards the courthouse from the
library.
 Glad to see that the Royal Bahamian
Police Force still transport their own prisoners. They are kept pretty busy
here. The island is 21 miles by 7, is home to 700,000 people, 2,000 of
whom are Scots, 250,000 vehicles and a healthy drugs trade. They
have had 23 drug related murders so far this year and like Campbeltown the neds
hang about outside the court.
 Walking up Parliament Street my stomach
thought that my throat had been cut, when we came upon an oasis, I thought I was
hallucinating with hunger, it was the Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant. We went in
and found the George Hotel from Inverary transported to Nassau. The young girl
who served us was excited that we were Scots and rushed through the back to get
her dad. He came through and stayed with us for about half an hour. He was a
really interesting guy who had gone to Glasgow University in the late sixties
and worked as a clippie on the busses during holidays. After a couple of years
as a clippie they put him on a bus drivers course and he became a bus driver
working out of Partick Cross bus station. I said to him that Glasgow must have
been a violent place in those days and he said, " oh aye, the worst by
far was the women who came out of the bingo, they were mental". He finished his
degree in business management, married a girl from Nassau and returned here
where he became second in charge of a supermarket chain. On retiring from there
at 65 he bought a traditional English pub and turned it into an Indian
Restaurant. The Scots community are frequent customers having Burns, and Kilt
and Curry nights. He said that on these nights they turn the air conditioning
right up till everyone is chittering with cold then they light the coal fire.
The Scots love it. We then proceeded to have the best curry we've had since
leaving Scotland in November.
 Took this photo for Bev's Dad, Stanley,
who worked for as an engineer and latterly worked for
Courages.
 Another of Bev's collection of Azalea
photographs. We'll be heading off for West Palm Beach, USA in a couple of
days.
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