More Nassau

On our last two days in Nassau we went to Triple A's Take-aways bar & restaurant, which is located on Armstrong off East Bay St. towards downtown/straw market. Paul & Malinda from Daydream discovered this hole in the wall and invited us to try it for lunch on Friday afternoon. We took the short walk over to the restaurant and found we were the only customers in the whole place. But we ordered the curry mutton & steam chicken with peas & rice and the food was really good and cost $7 each because they were the daily special. We also ordered Kalik & Sands beer for $3 each, which was much more reasonable than the Green Parrot charging us $4.50 for Sands. We attempted to eat at a different hole in the wall on Saturday, but two places we tried were closed (blue building next to the Rum Cake Factory & Rachel's on E. Bay St.) and so we just went back to the same place as the day before. We ordered the Stew Fish (snapper) for $7 & Fried Grouper for $14. I was mislead into thinking it was going to cost $10 for the meal, but it wasn't the case when we got the bill. :( The food was too salty today and I couldn't really eat the grouper because of the salt overdose. The Fish stew was tasty, but also too much salt as I was really thirsty for the rest of the day and evening. We got fuel from the StarPort (Texaco station), which was close to our anchorage and so we just took the jerry cans in the dinghy. We didn't have to wait too long before someone served us, but problems slowly arose. First, he asked if we wanted gasoline or diesel. We said both and luckily the guy was willing to give us diesel while the other boats around were getting gas. So we got the fuel hose handed down to us because the dock was so high up and the dinghy was quite low. I held on to a wooden plank off set from the dock as JR filled up our fuel jugs as best he could with all the wakes around and the dinghy that bumped into us from behind. Finally we finished getting our 21 gallons of diesel and wanted to get the gasoline, but the guy said we would have to get it from up front. Also he asked if we were paying cash or credit card and since we were paying with a credit card we would have to go to the front because he was too busy. I decided to just walk up front and kill two birds with one stone by getting the needed gasoline and paying with the credit card. So after getting some really long directions from the service guy, I ended up walking to E. Bay St. and going in the Texaco. When I tried to explain to the people there they were all confused and told me I couldn't pay with a credit card there as the sign stated. After explaining a few times the situation and the guy who told me to come up front with the bill and an empty jerry can, one of the guys said that he should have accompanied me up front. I just relayed the information that he was busy and couldn't come himself. Well, this didn't matter as no one up front knew how to use the credit card machine, which I found out later was the reason why they weren't accepted up front. So we walk all the way back to the docks and find the owner of the marina and he clears up the situation quickly. He tells the original service guy to go up front to run the credit card and to get me some gasoline as I never was able to get any up front because of the non- acceptance of credit cards resulting in no fuel. The guy then becomes really helpful and doesn't even let me open the fuel container by telling me he would take care of it all. So he fills up the jug in a few minutes as it was only 2 gallons and then he modifies my hand written bill. Using his trusty four function calculator, he sums up the diesel ($3.88/gal), gasoline ($4.61/gal), and a 3% service charge for using a credit card. He offered to walk up front to run my card, but I decide to walk it up with him just in case. It was a good thing I did make the additional trip up front because he was teaching the lady behind the counter how to run the credit card and she messed it up charging me the wrong amount. I acted quickly when the guy tore up the receipt and told her to run it again. I told him that he will have to refund my money for the charge that just took place or he could just subtract the value that was already charged from the total and make a second charge to the card, which would add up to the proper amount. He tried to tell me to just call the credit card company and tell them to fix it and not charge me, but I refused this option as I would not have phone access and didn't want the problem of having to deal with the credit card company. So I insisted on my second option as I deduced he didn't know how to refund money on the credit card machine. He looked at me dumbfounded and I told him I would do the math on paper so he could see it would all add up to the correct amount. I borrowed a pen and wrote on the torn receipt from the first charge on the card and showed him how much to charge me the second time he ran the card. He had the lady use the computer to do the math and we came up with the same value so he was satisfied and agreed to my request. It turns out this place had reasonable prices for their fuel and even water was cheap at 15 cents per gallon. For the Bahamas at least, we heard the Hungarian people paid 40-60 cents per gallon for potable water in Bimini. We were on the fence about going back to shore for more of the tasty French red wine and groceries, but in the end we were too hot and didn't want to go back to land where it was worse. We didn't know if we were going to leave the next day because JR wasn't in a hurry to leave and didn't want to make any plans, which I fail to understand because preparations need to be made when you leave a place. But I let him decide as he was captain of the boat and deemed he would know better by looking at the weather. I passed my time reading another book and sketching Atlantis from our anchorage site. :)