March 4, 2012 Dateline Nassau, Bahamas
Today Rich and Carol wanted to continue their exploration of Nassau. Nassau has Jitney buses that run routes all over the island. While waiting for the bus that they usually took to go downtown, another bus came up the side street. The driver called and said he was also going downtown. They got on his bus and took a ride through another side of Nassau. Yesterday’s bus to downtown ran along the coast where the expensive hotels, condos and timeshares are located. Today they saw the homes of the working Bahamian, in the United States these homes would clearly be labeled the inner city. They went past a number churches with the worshipers coming out. They all were wearing their Sunday best. The women were all well-dressed including dresses, fancy hats and high heels.
Rich and Carol were on their way downtown to a place called the Queen’s Stairs. In the late 1700’s Lord Dunmore was made the governor of the Bahamas. He decided that he needed to build forts to defend the City of Nassau from pirates. He had 6,000 slave use chisels and hammers to cut limestone blocks to build the forts. He did not want to use explosives as that might have given away what he was building forts. The slaves cut the 102 foot deep canyon shown in this picture. The width of the canyon is approximately 25 feet wide by several hundred feet long. Fort Fincastle was located on the top of the hill and was built with some of the limestone while other stones were used at Fort Charlotte. A tunnel from the fort to the bottom canyon was designed to allow the Governor to escape should there be an attack. The fort was never attacked. The day after the 16 year old Victoria became Queen of England she freed all slaves in the Empire. She reigned for 65 years and when she died the descendants of the Bahamians who dug the canyon built 65 steps up the end of the canyon for what she did for their ancestors and called them the Queen’s steps.
This year is the 60th Anniversary of Commencement of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. In honor of that reign Nassau had a celebration today and for the next two days. Prince Harry, the Queen’s second grandson, is in Nassau for the event. Rich and Carol just missed him when they got downtown after visiting the Queens Stairs. The square where a statute of Queen Victoria is located was all set up with displays of the current Queens life. There was a replica of her crown, which was passed around this group of girls. 
The festival included the above individual who was looking for people to take their picture with him. That picture would cost the person $1. Prince Harry will not stay in a hotel suite during his visit he will stay on the Golden Odessey, mega yacht pictured above It certainly is not small, at 265 feet. The Golden Odessey is accompanied by two other large boats that carry her water toys and provisions.
In Nassau there is a Senór Frog saloon. Outside the saloon is a giant statute of Senór Frog, Carol agreed to have her picture taken with him.
Just after Rich and Carol got back to me this afternoon a rain and windstorm came through the marina. The wind was so strong that it pushed me back and forth between the pilings forming the edges of my slip. Rich put some more lines on and blew up another of my inflatable fenders so I would not bounce around so much.
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