The Alex & The Eleanor + 1

Don’t worry. This will be shorter. You might have been able to tell from yesterday that we really liked the Cove. A lot. So we re-booked our flight, and stayed an extra day. Booked online, cause it was $200 cheaper, had to check in again, but stayed in the same room. Totally worth it. Totally. Ok, so its not really a mini moon any more, just a nice week on the beach. New Zealand is still the real honeymoon.

I got up a bit before Alex and decided to try and walk to the lighthouse at the end of the beach. Dang, the sun is really hot when its actually out - its been pretty cloudy when its not raining. Couldn’t make it to the lighthouse, to many rocks and a large wall that I could have gotten around, but seemed a bit too much like private property to make it a wise decision. Meet up with Alex at the Cain pool, hey, its nice, its quiet, and the pool has a cool little ledge you can sit on and read. Sadly the best seats for the sun were also right by the DJ stand. Loud.

We went to the buffet lunch place in the Cove, Mosaic. Probably the best lunch of the trip (always on the last day, isn’t it?) though they have no outside seating, and like many of the indoor bits, very overly AC’ed. But all the diet coke I could drink, and I drank a fair bit, even if the mix was pretty off (as it was everywhere I had it). A good variety of stuff, even how empty the place was, a a veritable bargain, cost wise.

After lunch, I went to the ocean beach, in a vain attempt to escape the bands that seemed to have sprouted up by all the pools, its friday I guess. Everything is getting a bit more busy. I have a nice swim in the ocean, the water in the cove is so calm, its easy just paddle. Alex takes a break from blackjack, and we decide to explore the aquarium a bit. It takes a bit of wandering to find the entrance (so many parts of the resort we haven’t seen, and won’t!), and its pretty cool, a tube going under and through, so the fishies are swimming over you. And we find the Giant Ray again, (we had seen him briefly tuesday night) and the Dig, which is really just more aquarium, which is fine by us. We venture (slightly) off the property to explore some shops across from the Marina Village, and sorry guys, no one is getting anything, I am not sure if the stuff is getting worse, the Bahamas are extra bad, or what, but the junk is junkier, and more generic then ever.

Alex is then very kind, for all though he wants to go play more outdoor blackjack, I talk him into one last waterslide, the cool tube one with the rapids. The line is certainly longer this time (there is a line at all) and the skies seem ready to open up (there were many lightening rods atop the open air Tower of Power, still, I am glad we got down when we did, because they started closing the pools immediately. We rushed back to Cain, between the ominous clouds and it being almost 5, I didn’t think Alex would get his last outdoor game in, but he did, the rain held off and I got to float in the Cain pool for a while. (I guess they figure there are so few people they don’t have to close them off at the same time as all the other giant pools. I’m not complaining)

We had a bit of time before dinner, so after changing, we headed back to the Casino (not that it in anyway made up for overeating as much as I have, but I have walked a fair bit while we have been at Atlantis) for some craps. Better this time, so it was fun again. Dinner at Mesa Grill (or, as Alex made the reservation, I’d like dinner at Bobby Flay, ahhh the cult of the celebrity chef). I had a white peach margarita, which was quite fabulous, but a margarita made with Patroon is likely to be pretty good. I decide to try and be good and have 2 appetizers, a corn soup to start, (good, a little too sweet by the end, could use some hot sauce) and a cheese dip for my main course (smaller, not healthier). Cheese dip was uninspired, but decent with the fries we got on the side. Alex’s pork was I would say the best thing I ate on the trip (save maybe the conch fritters at Compass Point). We actually had it wrapped up in an attempt to take it for the plane. Bobby Flay’s flavors seem to take the chef not being in the kitchen a bit better. Simpler, more bold. And just maybe more to our taste, but the definite winner of the restaurants. (again, last day is a charm)

Craps after dinner. Up and down, but it was the cigar smoke that kept following me that drove me home. Another reason to not become an addict. That and knowing we had an early morning.