Diving with Small Hope Bay Lodge

Mike said that there was room on their boat for Thursday so we got Johnnie to give us a ride over there in his taxi. He agreed to pick us up 12:30 after diving.

Moose, the dive master, met has at the dock and checked out Bill and Mike's c-cards. He asked Bill about his experience and since he did his check out dives in 50 degree water and we dove The Marion the day before he was cleared to do the deep dive with us, which was planned for 90' on the outer wall. We got our gear on the boat and talked with the new assistant dive master, Brittany, she was very nice and nice eye candy.

The dive was very nice. As soon as we got on the wall in 90' of water Bill had to stop me and point out the Hawksbill turtle just hanging out. He did run away as we snapped pictures of him. We went out along the wall until Bill had under 2000 PSI and then turned back. The we hung out at around 65' near the anchor line. As I was poking around I found a nice swim through that completed the dive.

The second dive was your garden variety shallow dive. Bill and Mike got to experience a never ending sea of coral and how hard it is to find the boat when it's like that....

Eric

Diving The Marion

That night I called Mike at Small Hope Bay Lodge and got the bad news. There boat was full for tomorrow morning (where have I heard this before), so we can’t dive with them. “We’re diving off of the boat,” I told Mike and Bill. “Okay,” they replied, “Whatever it takes.” We’ll be fine.

The next morning we started to prep at 0700, get food in the stomach thanks to Bill’s awesome cooking. Get the dinghy ready, thanks to Mike doing whatever else needs to be done. And…get all our dive gear together. No small feat.

Diving off of the boat also entails picking a location. I floated the idea of diving a wreck to Bill, but he was thinking more of coral and nice fish. Okay, no problem we can do that. There is plenty of that out there.

We motor out of the harbour and Mike drops in the water to check out what’s down below. “Some old coral heads,” he says. Okay, we’ll try further down. Then I am thinking, “we are awfully close to the Marion wreck. Why don’t we just dive that? It’s only in like 50-60’ of water.”

I plugged the coordinates in the GPS and we are pretty much right on top of it. Mike jumps in again with the mask and finds it right away. Okay, here we are. Let drop the grapple anchor on it, which we did. Then we spent he next hour gearing up. New gear for Mike and Bill and a new experience diving off of the boat, it takes some getting acclimated to. However, much better than a dive boat….

Bill did great for his first deep (67 feet) dive. However, our dive was cut short when Mike BC was runaway inflating. I had to make a beeline for the anchor line to keep from popping up to the surface too fast.

We cooked burgers on brats on the grill and took a long surface interval. There we no waves and the sky was overcast so it was very comfortable on the boat. After gorging ourselves we setup Bill with our fourth tank and Mike and I dove on the remaining air in our tanks. Mike used one of my extra BC's. We had enough air for a second 20 minute dive on The Marion.

Afterwards to we could not raise the anchor, although Bill was determined we'll have to dive down to unhook it....

Eric

Passage to Fresh Creek Andros

After windsurfing in Bimini for the afternoon (and getting sunburned) we cooked burgers on the grill and the ate them in the cabin to escape from the heat of the day in the air conditioning. After the burgers we had a pow wow about what to do next.

Bill was coughing a lot and his head was congested. He was a major trooper up to this point, making the passage from Key West and even windsurfing while sick, determined to have fun :). But SCUBA diving as obviously going to be too much, at least in Bimini. So after talking about it and our options we decided to head to Fresh Creek Andros, where Devante's Dream had been last year. We thought about Chub Cay as well and actually called over there on the new cell phone but they don’t have a dive outfit setup there yet. So Fresh Creek it is.

We moved over to the fuel dock and put on our 10 gallons of diesel (not much for going 165 NM) and I checked out of Bimini Blue Water Resort and Marina and set sail at 6:15PM. However, we had to douse sail as soon as we got out of the harbour as the wind was going with us so it was faster to motor. Bill and Mike are getting great practice setting and dousing the sails. We headed for North Rock off of Bimini and then turned to the east.

Just after we turned the wind picked up out of the south at 20 knots. It was probably there all the time just being blocked by the island. We set sail again and then enjoyed at beautiful sunset under a full head off sail going 8 knots… Very nice.

We stuck to our two hours shifts after 10:00PM. Bill had the first real night shift at 2200 and watched the moon rise. Then he had the 0400 to 0600 shift and made the North West Passage (just a few hundred yards wide in the dark which he called "threading a needle") and then watched the sun rise….

That day we gruelled through the passage the Andros against the wind. Eventually putting the sails away and just motoring. Bummer.

We made it to Andros by about 1400 just as a thunderstorm hit the area. Driving rain and low visibility. I was glad that I had been here before so I knew what to expect. Just as we were about to enter the harbour the low clouds cleared and we had good visibility. Two power boats that had passed us on the way over where waiting outside the harbour. When we went in they followed us. Evidently they were not familiar with the harbour entrance but were happy to follow a deep keeled sailboat in! When we docked the sun came out and baked us to a crisp….

Bimini

Today Eric, Bill and Mike finished up checking into the Bahamas at Immigration. The we pondered out fate as Bill still has a pretty good chest cold, meaning that he really should not be diving. So... we are not diving. Because we are not going to be diving for at least a few days we decided to head out and make our way further east, either Chub Cay or Fresh Creek (Andros).

I got my Bahamian cell phone upgraded to the new GSM service and called over to Chub Cay. They don't have a dive outfit there so we strached that idea. We're heading to Fresh Creek where we can dive with Small Hope Bay Lodge. I had Mike's cell phone in my old Bahamas phone so I called him to make sure that they have room for us on the dive boat. "Should not be a problem," he said. So, we're heading to Fresh Creek.

We decided that in the morning and figured that the best time to leave would be between 4 and 6 PM. That left us with five hours to kill. After much coaxing and discussion Bill and Mike agreed to setup the Windsurfer at the beach that is at the entrance to the harbor. We setup the windsurfer in the shade near the pool. It was no big deal after all. Then I rented a golf cart and we strapped the windsurfer on the top, grabbed out cooler of beers and headed to the beach.

It took a while but we figured out how to put the sail and mast and boom together at the beach. The sail is a hideous pink color. Hey, I got a good deal on it. Bill went first, trying to keep his balance on basically a surf board with a 16' mast and sail on it. He went pretty good after a few wipe outs. However, he did not want to get back on after people on a boat fishing pointed out the shark that was going right by us. We waited for the shark to leave and then went back at it.

Then I gave it a try and managed to sail for a bit. We had a long rope tied to the back of the windsurfer so that we could pull it back to the beach. Until you know how to do it well its hard to turn around...

Mike was last to try and since he got to watch Bill and I he ended up getting the hang of it the fastest. He tried to sail away but we pulled him back to shore. Then we all tried again and did better the second and even the third time. Finally we loaded the board back on the golf cart, grabbed our beers and stayed in the water talking about our exploits.

Now we are packed up and getting ready to head to Fresh Creek. It will take about 20 hours. There is no wind to speak of so we'll be motoring. It's also pretty warm....

Eric

Bimini!

Bimini landfall. We departed Key West on June 2nd at 5:45 PM and arrived Bimini today June 3rd at 3:30 PM. Very nice sail with a following sea and southwest and then west winds. Everyone took a watch. Practically a full moon for great visibility. We are no docked at Bimini Blue Water Resort and checking out our dive schedule...

Eric

Tropical Storm Barry

So now our wind has a name, Barry. Tropical Storm Barry is about 175nm west of us and moving north at a pretty good clip. Today we have 25 kts gusting to 30. He should be out of hear by tomorrow morning, which is when we plan on heading out.

Forcast looks pretty good, wind out of the south-southwest at 15-20. Perfect for making the hyperspace jump to Bimini. Careful calculations are required for this as we don't want to sail through an asteroid field and ruin our day.

Eric

Still in Key West

Wind still out of the east at 15-25 kts, heavy rain today and forcasted for tonight so we're not leaving yet. Bill and Mike are onboard. They got up to leave for the airport at 0200 so they are taking naps. The weather does look better for Saturday night, at least for sailing, winds south at 20, maybe some rain. And then better for Sunday and a nice high pressure for Monday.


It's just as well that we can't leave. The generator starter crapped out and Andy with ETC Marine is getting us a new one and installing it tomorrow, which is a Saturday, so needless to say Andy is an excellent contractor... Previously he had fixed our drive shaft coupling and engine mounts.


George did an excellent job on the projects that I had for him, even though we did not get to all of them. Here's a picture of the doors that he installed. You cannot believe how much easier to use than the old plastic slat was. I got these from Cruising Concepts which made them off of measurements that we provided. They fit perfectly.


George also installed a search light (it looks like a head light) which came out very cool. We had to make a custom platform for the light as the existing bow platform, which was made of teak, was too small. To make it easier to maintain we made it out of Starboard, a white polymer material that is very easy to work with. I also spent about four hours looking for just the right wiring fitting. I found it and you cannot even see the connectors for the wire, whic run into the anchor locker when the light is being used. The light has a remote control for turning it on and even panning and tilting. Way cool for those night time passages.

After we had got that done I was taking a look at our stove area and realized that the Starboard would make an excellent cutting area to go over the stove. George custom mounted that by routing the edges and installing the teak supports. Thanks, George.