March 21, 2011
Cruise ship dockage in Nassau. We anchored to the right hand side of the picture.
The next morning I awake at seven just as Ted is coming in with my morning cup of coffee. As I am getting up to brush my teeth I exclaim “oh my God”. Out of our port hole window in our stateroom, I spot the largest cruise ship I have ever seen, in fact it IS the largest cruise ship in the world owned by Royal Caribbean AND it is docking right beside where we are anchored or about 200 yards away. The ship had 13 outdoor balcony guestroom levels. We go up to watch as the ship comes into tie up against the dock. They are too large to go into the usual docks so they are sitting on the outside dock.
For the next half hour they worked with their engines and their 3 bow thrusters to position the ship against the dock. Unfortunately the turbulence of their bow thrusters also affects us and swings us around. Our anchor was still holding but we are facing with our bow pointed directly towards the ship. We are on full alert to make sure our anchor is holding, we are nervous about the situation. A few minutes later a bright orange tender with blue flashing lights and “Port Authority Security” approaches us. As Ted is checking our GPS position and our anchor watch, I step outside to speak to the Port Authority. They ask, no correction, they order us to move. As we rush around to set up the navigation station and get the engine started, they circle around us. I didn’t stop to take pictures, so trust me on this one. When they discovered that we are not moving as fast as they would like they start shouting to us to “hurry up – leave now”. Our windless (used to lift the anchor) really has only one speed - slow. While all of this is going on, anyone who wasn’t awoken by the ship coming into dock is now up and watching us trying to lift anchor with our escort with the blue flashing lights. I rev the engine at a higher RPM to keep the boat in position against the current in order to lift the anchor. I prepared myself at the helm to be ready to spin the boat around away from the cruise ship as soon as our anchor brakes free from the sand. Timing was critical and by this time our escort was still beside us circling around but no long shouting at us. The moment comes when the anchor is free and I manage to steer the boat towards the east end of the harbour while Ted secures the anchor. Mission accomplished but now we have to figure out where we are going to go. The Port Authority had told us to move towards the bridge and away from the cruise ships.
We head east towards the bridge and check out the anchorage but decide against trying to anchor amongst the boats with the higher winds. Ted comes up to the helm to take over as I look over the charts. I find another anchorage that is on the other side of the cruise ship docks so we decide to try to go there because it will be more protected from the winds but it means go past where we just left. We turn around again in the channel and head over there. As we get alongside the mammoth cruise ship we spot another large cruiser ship coming in the harbour towards us. Once again we have to spin around but now we are dealing with more current along with the wash from the cruise ship beside us. The next thing the Port Authority start chasing us again and I just think “oh no here we go again”. I keep a close watch as Ted struggles to turn the boat around in the channel with the wind and current. Our buddies in the orange boat decide to leave us alone once they see that we are turning around. We finally get turned safely around and head back towards the east end of the harbour, wondering where we are going to anchor. Going into a marina with these winds is not an option. We cruise through the harbour and check out the anchorage on the other side of the bridge but boats are anchored everywhere there too. So we decide to head out of Nassau harbour and anchorage in an open area but decide it is too open and exposed to the winds and waves. Next we sound our way towards Athol (say that fast) Island but there is too much coral to be able to anchor. Having exhausted all other possibilities we head back to Rose Island. We know the waves will be choppy getting there but only for a short time. The concern is the visibility manoeuvring around the coral heads at the entrance but our saving grace is that we are doing this at high tide. We safely get in and anchor at our same spot. Ed & Marge dinghy over to find out why we are back. We tell them that we got kicked out of Nassau, except this time it is funny. We head to the beach in the afternoon and I have the biggest and loveliest conch shell we have ever found – our prize for a morning of anguish.
