Over to the Harbor Club

Chris here... Well, we're back where we started before we left to hit the out islands of the Bahamas - the Nassau Harbor Club. Yesterday was a tough day. I'm still waiting to hear how my grandpa is doing. Apparently they found some other problems while running the tests for the memory and personality issues. The guy is amazing - 96 years old and he just started using a walker a year or two ago. Before that, at the spry age of 93 or 94 he was still picking kids up to sit them on his knee. So - for all of those who sent me "I'm sorry about your grandfather" - from my perspective he's still doing great until I'm told differently, but is having some problems accelerated due to his age. We'll see how it goes, and thank you to everyone for your kind words.

Anyway, between spending $191 on the starter issue and not finding the problem, and the issues with my grandpa, I was pretty down yesterday. Kristen had gone to the water park in the morning and come back with the kids, and I was not a happy guy. This led into a little breakdown of sorts on her part since she thought I was upset about the starter and couldn't understand why I was having such a tough time. Then I told her about my grandpa and she understood.

A little while later I wrote the blog entry about enjoying life, and realized that I was sitting at one of the coolest waterparks around, so I put a smile on my face and headed over with the family. The first "ride" I went on was the "Winding River", which is exactly what it sounds like. We got on individual tubes and floated in the current for about 200 feet. Then we got to the "rapids", a faster section of water with bumps. My glasses, which I need if don't want to be blind, starting slipping off of my face. I went to grab them, lost my balance in the rapids, hit a wall, flipped off the tube into the rushing water and lost my glasses. I could feel them dragging along my feet as I accelerated through the tunnel, and then they were gone. I tried to stop to look for them, but the guard on duty kept yelling at me since it was kind of unsafe to stay there with everyone heading my way through the choke point. The "river" widened ahead, so I stepped to the side with Kristen (who had jumped off her tube to look for my glasses) and the kids and proceeded to have a complete mental breakdown. It was the last straw. A few people had gotten off of their tubes to help me look, and a few minutes later a very knd person found them and handed them over. The frames were a bit scratched up, but the lenses were fine so I was pretty thankful.

At this point, I was done with the water rides so we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring all of the aquariums they have. The place is amazing and has one of the largest and most diverse aquarium complexes I've seen. I would highly recommend checking it out. We capped off the afternoon with a ridiculously expensive dinner (which I got frustrated about) at Johnny Rockets (a US hamburger chain) where we got $14 cheeseburgers, and then hung out on Pelican. Kristen and I were pretty drained at this point, so we watched some episodes of "The Office" and then she headed off to bed. I couldn't sleep so I stayed up until about 3am before passing out.

We awoke today with a much happier spirit. When you stay at the marina at Atlantis, checkout time is not until 11am and the water park opens at 10am. This enables you to get your wristband before you leave. So we got our wristbands, paid for our slip ($4/foot/night + electric, and those are the cheap seats!) and headed over to the Nassau Harbor Club. I had received an e-mail from our friends on Miakoda this morning saying that they were staying at the Harbor Club but I didn't respond to them. Instead we tied up there and knocked on their boat and got to enjoy their surprised looks! They have two girls Kaitlin's age, so they were immediately off their boats and in the pool at the marina. We told them that we were going to Atlantis this afternoon, so Jenny from Miakoda found a deal on a hotel room (which gives you complimentary access to Atlantis) and Kristen, Casey and Kaitlin, and Jenny and her two daughters all headed over there for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, Miakoda is having major engine issues - a bent connecting rod and a bad piston on one of their engines (they are a catamaran), so they may be here for a while with a very expensive repair bill.

We're all going to hang out for dinner tonight, and then we'll probably hang here in Nassau for another couple of days with them before heading to The Banks and across to Bimini.