Vacation in Nassau....Part 2

Monday morning we woke up with plans of going to downtown Nassau to visit the Pirate Museum and do some shopping.  We were looking for souvenirs for ourselves, as well as friends and family.  We ate breakfast and headed to the lobby, trying to figure out the best place to catch the bus.  The bus, or "jitney" as they're called down there, runs past most of the touristy places in Nassau, and only costs $1.25 per ride.  With money in The Bahamas even with American money, that was a pretty good deal.  We headed to the nearest bus stop, which was a short walk from the resort.  We rode the bus to downtown Nassau, and made our way to the Pirate Museum to start the morning.  We had picked this day as it was a day where only 1 cruise ship was docking in Nassau, so there would be less tourists shopping downtown to deal with.  We paid our way into the museum.  It's pretty neat, as it's set up with some interactive questions about the pirates of the old days.  The time period most discussed was 1690-1720, which was when piracy in The Bahamas was at its peak.  One of the reasons the Caribbean was so popular with pirates is that the waters were too shallow for large military ships that were chasing the, but deep enough for the pirate ships to maneuver.  It also tells a story of why some of the pirates got into the profession, and how Nassau eventually ran them off.  It gave a lot of general detail about pirates and the lifestyle of pirates.  For example, most of the time the carpenter on a ship was also the doctor.  Most injuries back then ended up requiring amputations, done with the same saw as the carpenter used to do ship repairs.  Thus, many pirates who required amputations died, either from the procedure or infection shortly after.  Some of the more famous pirates mentioned in the museum include Edward Teach(Blackbeard), Benjamin Hornigold, Henry Jennings, Sam Bellamy, Stede Bonnet, Charles Vane, "Calico" Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read.  There was a field trip of students while we were there, and leading their tour was a man dressed as a pirate.  The "pirate" was telling the class a lot of history in addition to what was in the museum, and I throughly enjoyed listening to his tales.

We left the museum and headed toward Bay St.  Bay St has plenty of shops, ranging from touristy places with cheap T-Shirts and trinkets to the high end places with items out of our price range.  We stopped in many places, even those with the items we couldn't afford, as it was still nice to look.  We also went through the "Straw Market" which housed individual stalls of handmade gifts from the locals.  They like to negotiate prices, especially if you start to walk away.  We decided not to buy anything at the straw market.  We ate lunch at a restaurant called "Sharkey's" and browsed their gift shop afterwards, buying a few T-shirts.  We were done with our shopping around 3pm, and decided to head to Paradise Island and the Atlantis Resort.  The Atlantis Resort has a casino, which was the main reason for our visit.  I started out at their sports book, where I bet on Green Bay for the first half and for the game against Kansas City in the Monday Night Football game.  Then I let the wife wander around the slot machines while I played some blackjack.  While Atlantis is known for the Pokerstars sponsored tournament in the Bahamas, they do not offer live poker.  The lowest table I could find was a $15 minimum.  I played blackjack for around an hour, finishing up $125, while my wife lost $100 at the slot machines.  We decided to head back to the resort.  We grabbed dinner, played some pool at the pool tables at the resort, and then decided to head up to the room to get some rest before our excursion the next day.

Coming up:  Our trip on the Powerboat Adventures!