The second trip on my new (to me) 25 ft Seacraft. Eleven very good days, the first requirement of which is a good crew.
Cdavis, Connor: long time Bahama cruiser, knows the water, weather, fish, and boat
Azapa, Simon: British/Chilean spearo, outstanding diver, serious bottom time, Apea Academy instructor, Safety diver in the Worlds a couple of years back, had never spent any extended time on a boat, but , boy, did he learn fast. Figured out a sling just fine. All around great shipmate.
Monkeyhatfork, Josh: Northern California diver, dolphin diving expert without whom the best part of the trip would not have been possible, dedicated videographer. Check the videos which will go up soon. All this and a vegetarian in an ocean full of seafood. It took a bit of getting used to, but I (the cook) managed to feed him just fine. I was sure I could tempt him with some of my fish hash, but he stayed true to his principles.
We left out of Ft Lauderdale on October 17, having waited a day to miss some nasty weather, and headed to Bimini for some diving with wild dolphins. We cleared customs and emigration (Simon left his passport in Florida. That got real interesting for a while. Helped that he was a Brit and the Bahamas are a former British Colony). The first day was still blowing and too rough to find the dolphins, so we did the obligatory dive on the Sapoma wreck and gathered a good supply of conch and lobster. Day 2 and 3 were dedicated to wild dolphins with short detours to shoot dinner. Simon, the spearo, complained bitterly that I shoot too fast, he, he, he. Sorry, but I was in a hurry to get back to those dolphins.
My thanks to the crew of the “Indigo”, a live-aboard that specializes in dolphins, for some tips on where to start looking. Really funny when we found'em first.
If you have not experienced dolphin diving, do whatever it takes to find some. It is truly amazing. Doing loop-de-loops, fast, with a dolphin practically glued to your shoulder and another on on your back, so close you could almost touch them with your nose, all the way to the bottom and back. An adrenalin rush without compare. Other times we could sit on the surface surrounded by 5 or 6 dolphin, nobody moving, just being companionable. Fill your heart, fill your soul.
Did you know that dolphins can turn their heads? We watched a couple go vertical in the water, head down while they scanned the bottom with sonar looking for their next meal (fish under the sand). They would swivel their heads as they scanned, turning heads sideways far more than you would suspect they could.
Azapa can fill you in on the naughty baby dolphins and their exasperated mother.
Dolphins like to play, active play, and they are a heck of a lot better in the water than we are. If(when) we got winded, pretty soon they would get bored and take off. We would jump back in the boat and follow until they wanted to play again. An astonishing experience that I plan to repeat, often.
Two days of dolphins and we faced a hard decision, do some more or head for Hole in the Wall (HITW), a remote spot I have been wanting to dive for years. We chose HITW and headed for Great Harbor Cay in the Berry Islands, 80 miles away and the jump off point for HITW. When we got there, oh joy, we were greeted with the news that the whole island was out of fuel. OH S--T! is more like it. I didn't have enough fuel for HITW and the diving around Great Harbor wasn't great. Well, they said they would have fuel tomorrow, but a little asking around revealed that “tomorrow” was like “manyana” in Latin America. Might be 3 or 4 days. At this point, mass panic was the dominate emotion, but a little more asking around and we found out that a cruise ship operation not far away had fuel and would sell a limited amount in emergencies, which this definitely was. It was getting close to closing time so we went off as fast as the boat would go, pushing 40 knots, made it just in time. Very nice people. The price was a shade on the high side, but considering the crack that they rescued us from, we were very glad to get it, humbly grateful, and then some.
Next morning we took off for HITW, 37 miles away, perfect crossing weather. Arrived mid morning and immediately went looking for some walls. The chart showed what looked like vertical walls with tops near 50 ft, much shallower than most of the Bahamas, almost as nice as Little Cayman. No luck,
Reality was tops in about 90 and vis about 90, less than hoped for. That is a whole different situation from what I expected and a lot harder diving. Oh well, it's an explore and deep diving is fun too. The weather would have allowed a visit to an adjacent area that I had heard was real good and I made a mistake by not trying that day. Later weather was not conducive and we never made that spot. Instead, we explored some areas inside of the wall and found not much structure but lots and lots of fish. Big grouper, not too smart either, schools of big hogfish, nice. We went around the corner on the “inside” and started exploring. Found an unexpected bonus. For several miles, it drops right off from shore. 13 ft at the shoreline and 50 ft, 50 m out. Great ledges. In spots, very good coral, caves, and lots and lots of good size fish, at one spot, clouds of hogs. It just ain't like this any more. In spots it was as good as “back in the day” I haven't seen this in quite a while. Its a real pleasure to have a big (15 lb) dog snapper come right up in your face. Lots of hawksbill turtles, grouper of all species, hogfish, most of the snappers, none of them very spooky, a very live place. This area clearly is not visited much. We only saw one other boat on the reef the whole time we were there. For 4 days, we explored along the coast as the wind kept building. Lucky us, this particular spot is better sheltered from that wind direction than anywhere else we could have been. 15-18 knots of breeze and it was flat calm for us. This was Bahamian diving like it is supposed to be, but seldom is. One day we went a little off shore, a quarter mile out is a thousand feet deep, and did some line diving. Josh just about doubled his best depth and I hit 33 m diving exhale, equalizing hands free down to 28 m. My best exhale dive by a good bit; I was a happy man.
Oh well, all good things must come to an end, and soon it was time to head home. So, off we went with the wind getting stronger. We were running straight away from it, so no real problem, but it was a strange experience to be running at 20 knots plus with the wind so strong that it was blowing through the boat from the stern and at a good clip. It must have been touching 30 knots in gusts. Sea got up pretty good, over 6 foot and steep before we turned the corner into Great Harbor. Word of warning for any of you planning such a trip. If you tell your wife you will call at a certain time and forget to do it, she will have the Bahamian Rescue Force, US Coast Guard, and everybody else out looking for you, not to mention, its just not conducive to good marital relations. You don't need to know any more of THAT story.
Great Harbor to Bimini,we went by an area called the Gingerbread Grounds, a huge area of shallow heads out in the middle of nowhere. Used to be incredible abundance of hogs and grouper. I and one additional shooter have put over 400 lbs of fish in the boat in a couple of hours, more than once. But, you just can't keep doing that sort of thing. Sad to say, that area has been hit hard for too long. A few hogs, and very small grouper were all we saw. Luckily, I like to eat Coney, a species of small grouper most divers don't pursue. There were lots of those. Simon put a nice one in the boat, having gotten the hang of a Hawaiian sling. I got one more and a couple of hogs to take home with us. Off to Bimini and home the next morning, with bad weather closing in. We got home just fine, but the next day would have been a bear.
Many thanks again to DB for providing a way for us far scattered freedivers to make contact.
A good time was had by all.
Connor
Cdavis, Connor: long time Bahama cruiser, knows the water, weather, fish, and boat
Azapa, Simon: British/Chilean spearo, outstanding diver, serious bottom time, Apea Academy instructor, Safety diver in the Worlds a couple of years back, had never spent any extended time on a boat, but , boy, did he learn fast. Figured out a sling just fine. All around great shipmate.
Monkeyhatfork, Josh: Northern California diver, dolphin diving expert without whom the best part of the trip would not have been possible, dedicated videographer. Check the videos which will go up soon. All this and a vegetarian in an ocean full of seafood. It took a bit of getting used to, but I (the cook) managed to feed him just fine. I was sure I could tempt him with some of my fish hash, but he stayed true to his principles.
We left out of Ft Lauderdale on October 17, having waited a day to miss some nasty weather, and headed to Bimini for some diving with wild dolphins. We cleared customs and emigration (Simon left his passport in Florida. That got real interesting for a while. Helped that he was a Brit and the Bahamas are a former British Colony). The first day was still blowing and too rough to find the dolphins, so we did the obligatory dive on the Sapoma wreck and gathered a good supply of conch and lobster. Day 2 and 3 were dedicated to wild dolphins with short detours to shoot dinner. Simon, the spearo, complained bitterly that I shoot too fast, he, he, he. Sorry, but I was in a hurry to get back to those dolphins.
My thanks to the crew of the “Indigo”, a live-aboard that specializes in dolphins, for some tips on where to start looking. Really funny when we found'em first.
If you have not experienced dolphin diving, do whatever it takes to find some. It is truly amazing. Doing loop-de-loops, fast, with a dolphin practically glued to your shoulder and another on on your back, so close you could almost touch them with your nose, all the way to the bottom and back. An adrenalin rush without compare. Other times we could sit on the surface surrounded by 5 or 6 dolphin, nobody moving, just being companionable. Fill your heart, fill your soul.
Did you know that dolphins can turn their heads? We watched a couple go vertical in the water, head down while they scanned the bottom with sonar looking for their next meal (fish under the sand). They would swivel their heads as they scanned, turning heads sideways far more than you would suspect they could.
Azapa can fill you in on the naughty baby dolphins and their exasperated mother.
Dolphins like to play, active play, and they are a heck of a lot better in the water than we are. If(when) we got winded, pretty soon they would get bored and take off. We would jump back in the boat and follow until they wanted to play again. An astonishing experience that I plan to repeat, often.
Two days of dolphins and we faced a hard decision, do some more or head for Hole in the Wall (HITW), a remote spot I have been wanting to dive for years. We chose HITW and headed for Great Harbor Cay in the Berry Islands, 80 miles away and the jump off point for HITW. When we got there, oh joy, we were greeted with the news that the whole island was out of fuel. OH S--T! is more like it. I didn't have enough fuel for HITW and the diving around Great Harbor wasn't great. Well, they said they would have fuel tomorrow, but a little asking around revealed that “tomorrow” was like “manyana” in Latin America. Might be 3 or 4 days. At this point, mass panic was the dominate emotion, but a little more asking around and we found out that a cruise ship operation not far away had fuel and would sell a limited amount in emergencies, which this definitely was. It was getting close to closing time so we went off as fast as the boat would go, pushing 40 knots, made it just in time. Very nice people. The price was a shade on the high side, but considering the crack that they rescued us from, we were very glad to get it, humbly grateful, and then some.
Next morning we took off for HITW, 37 miles away, perfect crossing weather. Arrived mid morning and immediately went looking for some walls. The chart showed what looked like vertical walls with tops near 50 ft, much shallower than most of the Bahamas, almost as nice as Little Cayman. No luck,
Reality was tops in about 90 and vis about 90, less than hoped for. That is a whole different situation from what I expected and a lot harder diving. Oh well, it's an explore and deep diving is fun too. The weather would have allowed a visit to an adjacent area that I had heard was real good and I made a mistake by not trying that day. Later weather was not conducive and we never made that spot. Instead, we explored some areas inside of the wall and found not much structure but lots and lots of fish. Big grouper, not too smart either, schools of big hogfish, nice. We went around the corner on the “inside” and started exploring. Found an unexpected bonus. For several miles, it drops right off from shore. 13 ft at the shoreline and 50 ft, 50 m out. Great ledges. In spots, very good coral, caves, and lots and lots of good size fish, at one spot, clouds of hogs. It just ain't like this any more. In spots it was as good as “back in the day” I haven't seen this in quite a while. Its a real pleasure to have a big (15 lb) dog snapper come right up in your face. Lots of hawksbill turtles, grouper of all species, hogfish, most of the snappers, none of them very spooky, a very live place. This area clearly is not visited much. We only saw one other boat on the reef the whole time we were there. For 4 days, we explored along the coast as the wind kept building. Lucky us, this particular spot is better sheltered from that wind direction than anywhere else we could have been. 15-18 knots of breeze and it was flat calm for us. This was Bahamian diving like it is supposed to be, but seldom is. One day we went a little off shore, a quarter mile out is a thousand feet deep, and did some line diving. Josh just about doubled his best depth and I hit 33 m diving exhale, equalizing hands free down to 28 m. My best exhale dive by a good bit; I was a happy man.
Oh well, all good things must come to an end, and soon it was time to head home. So, off we went with the wind getting stronger. We were running straight away from it, so no real problem, but it was a strange experience to be running at 20 knots plus with the wind so strong that it was blowing through the boat from the stern and at a good clip. It must have been touching 30 knots in gusts. Sea got up pretty good, over 6 foot and steep before we turned the corner into Great Harbor. Word of warning for any of you planning such a trip. If you tell your wife you will call at a certain time and forget to do it, she will have the Bahamian Rescue Force, US Coast Guard, and everybody else out looking for you, not to mention, its just not conducive to good marital relations. You don't need to know any more of THAT story.
Great Harbor to Bimini,we went by an area called the Gingerbread Grounds, a huge area of shallow heads out in the middle of nowhere. Used to be incredible abundance of hogs and grouper. I and one additional shooter have put over 400 lbs of fish in the boat in a couple of hours, more than once. But, you just can't keep doing that sort of thing. Sad to say, that area has been hit hard for too long. A few hogs, and very small grouper were all we saw. Luckily, I like to eat Coney, a species of small grouper most divers don't pursue. There were lots of those. Simon put a nice one in the boat, having gotten the hang of a Hawaiian sling. I got one more and a couple of hogs to take home with us. Off to Bimini and home the next morning, with bad weather closing in. We got home just fine, but the next day would have been a bear.
Many thanks again to DB for providing a way for us far scattered freedivers to make contact.
A good time was had by all.
Connor
