I highly doubt that the Atlantis casino has hookers and drugs. It is relatively empty for a large part of the day. The only place where you can get a hooker at Atlantis is at the Aura nightclub. The goons at the door are friends with the Bahamian pimps and they let their girls in -- but the girls have to be dressed to the nines, and varnished and polished to high sheen.

Incidentally, I once went to Aura and was turned down entrance at the door. I guess that I wasn't hip enough. My neighbours are a yacht crew for a rich guy and I went and asked to borrow his yacht captain white uniform. Went back to the Aura dressed in that -- went to the front of the line, and they undid the velvet rope and let me in immediately. For the most part it was a letdown, except that Fergie (the singer) and Shakira were partying there.

>it not unfair paint all Jet Ski operators with the same negative brush?

No. They are all thugs. I have run into them all. After work, I used to access Cabbage Beach at the Paradise Island Club access point with the steps down to the beach. One day I met this young boy (couldn't have been more than 12 or 13) trying a roll a joint. He thought that weed was legal in the Bahamas, and he bought some from a jetski operator. He said that he couldn't afford the cocaine, so he bought some weed. I looked at his stuff. It was brown and yellow. It was dried plant of some kind, and it was probably less than 10% weed. I told him that I didn't think that he should smoke it, as it wasn't weed. He didn't care. He rolled it up anyway and smoked it. I am willing to bet that the cocaine that the jetski operators sell is cut with baking soda. It is safe to sell fake drugs to tourists because you know that you will never see them again.

The odd time I was mistaken for a tourist by a jetski operator and he asked if I wanted to buy drugs. I asked him if he could get smack (heroin) and he said sure!

The thing that p*ssed me off most about the jetski operators, is that I swim along the buoy line, and they bring their machines inside the buoys to try and harass tourists into getting a ride. They zoom by me quite close, and when I flip them the bird, it only incites them to make a closer pass. They are all vermin.

LOL @John - Exit interviews -- I don't believe you. The only Ministry of Tourism interviews are cards handed out in the international departure lounge. I was given one by a lovely Tourism employee, on my latest trip to Europe as I was departing Nassau. You have to check as to why you came. There is no SEX check box. You made that up. As Groidal stated, no one comes here looking for sex. That may have been true in the 1960's and 1970's but the whole world knows that we have a high AIDS rate.

My condo is on PI. I used to swim regularly at Cabbage Beach. The jetski operators are thugs. They roar by close to swimmers, especially Bahamian swimmers. I watch them pester groups of young females trying to chat them up. I watched women trying to get rid of them. They zoom out and run their machines up on the sand near them in a show of machismo.A few times I have intervened and they wanted to fight me. Jetski operators on machines numbers NP415, 425 and NP445 are particularly obnoxious. I once caught a fish off the rocks at the end of the beach near the Ocean Club, and one of them demanded that I give it to him. We should ban the jet ski operators and let the hotels run the concessions. Yes, more business for foreigners, but at least it will be safe for the tourists.

The trouble with the jet-ski industry is that the former Minister of Transport had a hidden interest in the industry.

The Jamaican front-buyer needs to sit small. The sins on his soul are overwhelming.

Now there is a business that could diversify the Bahamian economy.

I'd like to know the list of politicians who got free units for the permit approvals. It was an eyesore -- it still is an eyesore, and a 10 story building doesn't belong on PI.

Sad state of affairs. The sooner that we get folks like the Winders or James Smith out of government business, the better. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and everyone should be treated the same -- foreigners and Bahamians.

The scenario that you describe is the one exception that I'd make to the humiliating Bank Lane parade of prisoners. I think that murderers, rapists, child molesters etc are sociopaths and that society is better off without them -- either through humane execution or locking them up away from society. However, I do not believe in humiliating prisoners. It is a philosophical thing. As a humanist, you have to be the best that you can, and honour the human side of the homo sapiens animal. To do that, you overcome the animal urges of trying to inflict the maximum amount of psychic damages that is possible using humiliation and torture. That should be totally reserved for the sub-human politicians who have betrayed the public trust and made a mockery of truth, decency and democracy. And that applies to the PLP and the FNM politicians who have broken the law.

Wow, Look at the guy with the rooster comb spiked, coloured hair. Doesn't somehow fit the typical image of migrant.