Seawall Atlantis New Providence Paradise Island James Bond Thunderball Bahamas
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Infiltrating Atlantis

THE BAHAMAS – The seawall on Paradise Island // Thunderball (1965)

North of Nassau is an island named Paradise – on it is Atlantis, Bahamas’ biggest hotel monolith. Though it might not sound like Caribbean relaxation, there is a gem hidden in the Atlantis mix of cocktails, casinos and cabanas!

Why Bond was here
Bond (Sean Connery) investigates the hijacking of nuclear warheads – and comes down to the Bahamas, where Spectre top shot Largo (Adolfo Celi) operates. After a little tête-à-tête on Love Beach, Bond infiltrates Largo’s private harbor from sea side and disguises himself as an adjoining frogman from the villains team, as they are about to start a scuba dive to the hidden warheads.

How you gonna get there
The yacht harbor is in reality a seawater channel connected with an artifical lagoon on Paradise Island, a little amusement isle north of the bigger New Providence. The whole area belongs to the Atlantis complex, a vast hotel and amusement area on Paradise Island. Only hotel guests or guests with day-passes are allowed to enter Atlantis. Then the seawall can be found on the northern shore of the island, next to Cove Beach. It is officially forbidden to step on the yet derelict wall – but guards usually don’t care. Paradise Island itself can be either accessed via bridge or ferry boat.

Good to know
Atlantis is a big hullabalooza full of casinos, cocktail bars and water slides – and thus some sort of never ending spring break. While staying on New Providence – for example at The Greycliff or at Compass Point – is much more relaxing, one needs to check out Atlantis at least once. Entering the hotel casinos or arcade malls is for free, same as being baffled by the lavishness of everything. Not for free is the area, that is needed to get to the seawall.
It belongs to the Atlantis Water Park, a complex of pools, shark tanks and adventurous slides. A day ticket is 150 US-dollar in the high season, else 135 US-dollar. While is sounds much, it actually is worth the fun. And as there are no more sharks circling the pool of Palmyra villa, Atlantis’ big sea lagoon including three hammerhead sharks might just be the one alternative to enjoy.

 

After roaming New Providence some days – indulging in the suburbs of Nassau, following old pirate trails and exploring hidden beaches at the islands south shore – we were ready for a day off from holiday. A water amusement park sounded just right. And sure yes it was!

© 1965 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and Danjaq, LLC. (1), © Huntingbond (2)

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3 thoughts on “Infiltrating Atlantis”

  2. Sergej Novoselic says:

    Thank you for writing this, but you can access Thunderball Breakwater (that’s the most used name for this wall) for absolutely FREE coming from the other side – from a big and very long public beach. You only must find a main public access to the beach full of fat red line-cruisers Turists. Go for a 30 min walk to the left. If you are with the bicycle you might even use a wooden path right behind the beach so you don’t have to carry it all the way. From the Thunderball Bridge on, it’s not for free, but turn right before and walk to the breakwater. You can jump in, swim 10 meters across and climb out like Sean Connery did BUT underwater glasses and some strong footware are a must. The steps from the movie have peaks sharp as a knife. But no guard will scream at you only because you shortly got out like Connery and made a few photos. Swimming in Breakwater is beautiful, it’s a natural pool and very clean. If you go back where you came from to the beach and turn right, you will visit a Casino Royale beach love scene location in front of “One and Only” Resort in which you can even enter freely from the beach side and have a drink. Be dressed nicely, it’s very exclusive.

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