Albany Marina, Bahamas
A new, as yet undiscovered marina awaits visitors on New Providence Island.
December 27, 2010
On the day in 2007 when I met Capt. Herb Magney, he was sporting a green feather headdress, a gold chest plate, and a peacock-feather quilt whose hemline rested about halfway up his bare white thighs. He looked at me through the red and blue war paint on his face, held out a tray of canapés, and asked, “Are we having fun yet?”
Albany Marina's megayacht slips are now open for business on New Providence island.
The festive cocktail party was aboard the 125-foot Palmer Johnson Milk and Honey, which Magney captained before taking command of the 145-foot Heesen At Last in April 2010. When I bumped into him last month in Fort Lauderdale, where he was promoting At Last to charter brokers, his boring, dark sport coat almost made me cry. Thank goodness I saw a little twinkle in his eye. I hoped that he literally had something up his sleeve.
“I’ve found a great new option in the Bahamas,” he said, and then launched into a practical campaign for Albany Marina, an under-construction luxury development whose core amenities, including restaurants and a megayacht marina, are now open for business on New Providence island. “It’s even easier to get to this place than to Atlantis from the airport in Nassau,” Magney said. “We’re on the yacht, and we’re gone. Within 30 minutes of the guests’ airplane landing, we’re off.”
He had no war paint this time, but he was on a mission nonetheless, to explain that where you begin a cruise in any destination makes a huge difference in how quickly you get to relax. What Atlantis is to casino games and water slides (nothing wrong with that, of course), Albany Marina is to luxury golf and adult pool bars.
That’s a great match for the types of clients who might choose a yacht such as At Last, whose weekly base rate is $110,000. It’s also a superb place to immerse yourself in some atmosphere before starting a cruise through the Exumas, which are, in his words, “pure serenity. This is off the beaten path. This is where you go when you don’t want to answer the phone.”
They’re answering the phones at Albany Marina, of course, with a good number of large yachts bringing their business to the new facility. More will likely arrive in early 2011 along with newly constructed buildings that will include everything from two-room suites to five-bedroom penthouses with private swimming pools.
Yes, I could see spending a few days there before turning the whole of the Exumas into your own private swimming pool—especially if you could get Magney to serve some poolside canapés in his favorite outfit.
Kim Kavin is an award-winning writer, editor and photographer who specializes in marine travel. She is the author of six books including Dream Cruises: The Insider’s Guide to Private Yacht Vacations, and is editor of the online yacht vacation magazine www.CharterWave.com.
