Weddings and Permits

I'm writing while underway to Providenciales Turks & Caicos.  We are crossing the Caicos Passage.  Wind is calm and the seas are 4 ft rollers out of the northeast.

Anchored in Mayaguana - 6 ft water

We stuck out the first major weather front of the year in Mayaguana.  Winds at times were gusting over 33 knots.  I’ve got a new confidence in my 75 pound delta anchor as we had 2 foot swell in the bay during the blow and the anchor never moved an inch.

Last blog I told you I would report on Ms. Eden’s wedding on Saturday.  We got as dressed

The Bride - Ms Eden

up as we could.  I had dress shorts on and my best Caribbean shirt on.  Sam wore a long dress.  The wedding started at 2 pm, but the bride did not arrive until 2:45 pm (sounds like my wedding day…LOL).  We could immediately see that we were under dressed.  Most guys wore black pants and a tuxedo shirt with a bow tie, and the women were dressed in short and long dresses.  Folks on Mayaguana are very religious, we were told that this is typical church clothes.

I had a very interesting observation at the wedding.  Ms Eden grew up in Freeport on Grand Bahamas Island which is the second largest city in the Bahamas and the largest cruise ship port.  Ms Edens dad was waiting outside the church.  I struck up a conversation with him about the spearfishing talk at the school but he had no interest.  I got the impression from him that we were not welcome.  I wasn’t sure if it was me, so I asked Sam and Ryan and they had the same vibe.

Patrick - Fisheries Warden

As it turns out, Ms Eden arrived and called out to the three of us before she entered the church.  Once again her dad didn’t acknowledge us.  The wedding party went into the church.  There wasn’t a seat in the small church, so we waited outside.  After the ceremony, Patrick, the fishing warden, gave us a ride to the reception at the other end of the island.  The reception was a very formal setting with catered food.  We looked to see if there was place cards.  No place cards.  Same vibe as at the church, so we left and went to Patrick’s restaurant.

I thought about this a lot over the last 36 hours.  The Mayaguana people couldn’t be warmer to us as visitors, yet every person that was from Freeport wouldn’t give us the time of day.  When I visited Freeport years ago I didn’t like the attitude of the people.  Being a major cruise ship port, we overwhelm them in their own city as the “ugly American tourist”.  I was certainly one of those during my visit years ago.  I don’t know if this is the reason, but they certainly weren't from Mayaguana and it showed.  What I do know is that Ms Eden grew up in Freeport, but she should be the poster child for Mayaguana’s friendly attitude.

The next day, the stalled front was moving out and wind went down to 15 knots, so we put

Snorkeling looking for Dinner

the wet suits on and headed for the western reef.  It was 5 days since our last dive Tuesday, and it would be the last dive as we were heading to Turks & Caicos and the airport to get home for Christmas.

This reef was the best reef we have dove on this trip.  Hard coral on the top of the reef, but there were holes that went down to sand at about 45 feet and there were lots of fish in these holes.  The deepest I had shot a fish was at 40 feet, so I’m sure Ryan was thinking this was my final exam.

Swimming with a Spotted Eagle Ray

We located a Yellow Fin Grouper, and Ryan told me how to approach the hole he hid in.  The first dive to 45 feet scared the grouper as I didn’t come from over the top of the hole.  The second dive, I settled on top of the hole, I poked my head over the top of the hole, but by the time I got the pole spear lined up, he was gone. 

Breathing Up at Surface

We weren’t done yet, I breathed up at the surface for 4 minutes and got my pulse down to 74 before the next dive.  I wear a heart monitor that displays through my dive watch, so I can tell when I’m ready to start a new dive.  I download the dives each night into my PC.  It has also shown me some great data prior to and during the dives.  Ryan dove down and showed me the hole the Yellow Fin was now hiding in.  He actually marked it with a live conch! 

I took my final breath, loaded the pole spear, cleared my ears and started a proper dive entry.  It took 15 seconds to get to the bottom.  After 30 feet you are negatively buoyant, so you don’t kick, you just sink and stay relaxed.  I got to the bottom at 49 feet, and started my slow movement towards the hole.  I was looking in the hole that was at the sand bottom.  These fish are very camouflaged, so you have to look carefully or you miss them.  I looked in that hole for the next 15 seconds and could not make out the grouper.  I surfaced with my dive watch showing 48 feet and 52 seconds total dive time.

Ryan was laughing when I got to the surface.  He said I was looking in the hole on the sand bottom, but the grouper was sitting 3 feet directly above me in a hole in the reef.  I never saw him.  That was 4 dives for one grouper, I was done after 4 max depth dives.  Ryan has not shot a fish on this trip, as he wants Sam or I to shoot all the fish.  But being the last day, Ryan grabbed my pole spear, gave me the video camera to hold, and he went down and showed how easy it can be.  We ate that Grouper last night for dinner.  Delicious.

Spearing the Permit Jack.  Great Fish Salad For Lunch Today

We got in the dink (short for dingy), and rode to another part of the same reef that was in 30 feet of water.  This reef was even better that the first.  It had the same type of structure, but was loaded with Permit Jacks and Grouper.  We switched turns taking “scouting dives” to look under the reef edges.  During these dives there were 3 reef sharks “monitoring” us.
When Ryan came up he said “Dive down and shoot the silver fish in that hole”.  I finished breathing up, loaded the spear and dove.  I got down to the hole, this time I got the spear lined up with the hole before I looked in.  As soon as I looked in I saw the silver fish.  I had no idea what it was, but it was silver, he turned sideways and a shot it.

I almost missed as the spear went in just below the backbone.  I was able to pull him out of

Permit Jack - Fighting the Good Fight

the hole, but I never had a grouper that fought like this.  I started for the surface, but he was almost overpowering me.  I can’t imagine world class spear fishermen who shoot fish over 100 lbs, but that is what the hip reels and float lines are for.

You will see that the video is a little jumpy as Ryan was on lookout for the sharks.  I was thinking the same on the way up.  Ryan had always told me that once you hug the fish, it is yours and the sharks won’t bother you.  I was trying to do this, but the fish was putting up a good fight and I couldn’t get him close. It felt like I kept fumbling a football!

When I go to the surface, the sharks showed up, not at the bottom like usual, but at the surface, “jaws like” with the fins showing out of the water.  We took a few pictures, put the Permit Jack in the dink and got out of the water.

Ryan did a few deep dives out on the wall while I spotted for him.  But as tired as I was, it now hit me that this diving adventure is over and it’s time to get back home with the family for Christmas.  Jackie is coming from school in NYC and AJ from Hillton Head.  I’ve got a meeting with a client in North Carolina, Thursday, then everyone will be home Friday for Christmas.
  
The Caribbean adventure continues on December 29th.  This time with Julianne back on board along with AJ, Jackie and her friend.  

Merry Christmas and thank you so much for reading.  I have really appreciated all of the comments that you have left for me.

The Amazing Folks of Mayaguana

We arrived in Abraham's Bay on Tuesday afternoon and got the boat secured for the weather front that would be here by 9 pm.  We got about an hour of diving in before nightfall, but after 4 days of hard diving, both my legs cramped up, so I drove the tender.

Scully, Ryan & Sam

The wind came up quickly from the north and was blowing 34 knots by 10 pm.  I went out on the bow to check the ground tackle and found that my homemade snubber line was failing at the main splice.

Top Shelf main anchor is a 75 pound Delta style anchor with 300 feet of 3/8" chain.  Since a chain has no stretch, a nylon "Snubber" us used between the bow and the chain to cushion the impact of waves and wind gusts.  If there was no snubber, this impact would damage the windlass (anchor winch) and pull the anchor from the sand.

Fisheries Warden Serving Drinks

We used dock lines and a second chain hook to take some of the strain off of the snubber splice.  Needless to say, Santa is bringing me a professionally made snubber for Christmas.

I stayed up until 2 am on "anchor watch" to make sure we stayed anchored.  It was the first time I was anchored in this type of weather.  Very unnerving, but I finally trusted our setup and went to bed.

Christmas Tree Lighting Concert

The next morning, the wind had shifted to the northeast, but was still gusting 25 knots.  We all needed a day off, so we decided to go ashore.

I rely on a social media site called ActiveCaptain.com which reviews anchorages and marinas all over the world.  Captains make comments on every anchorage both about navigation and what to expect ashore.

Abraham's Bay Restaurant

Active Captain comments mentioned a person named "Scully" who would help cruisers out who wanted to visit Mayaguana.  I call Scully on VHF channel 16 and he met us at the boat ramp.  This was the beginning of quite a night.

Two settlements, four bars, two restaurants, a Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony and a ride in the back of the Police Car and we managed to find ourselves invited to a wedding on Saturday night and Ryan and Sam were scheduled to do a presentation on Spear Fishing for the entire high school the next morning.

High School Presentation

Ms Eden: Principal & Bride

It so happens that the principal of the high school is the one getting married.  She is a younger woman who has a great personality and really made us welcome in the community.  Both Scully and Ms Eden introduced us to the fisheries warden.  He is a 50 year old Rastafarian who also owns one of the restaurants.  He kept asking us how much fish we had on Top Shelf.  He actually had me a little nervous as nobody really knows what the regulations are.   We ended the night playing backgammon at the the Thunderbolt Bar until it closed at midnight.

High School Students

We woke up Thursday to another windy day as the front has stalled right over Mayaguana.  The presentation at the high school was scheduled at lunchtime, so we loaded up the fishing gear and a laptop and made our way back ashore.  The presentation went very well as the kids were very engaged.  Bahamians are scared to death of sharks.  Ryan did his best to convince the student that a shark won't eat them, but after some of the videos they showed on the projector, I'm not sure he did such a good job.

723 Nautical Miles Since Florida

After the presentation, the fisheries warden was waiting for us outside.  He wanted to review the fishing regulations with us.  I thought we were in trouble.  As it ended up, we are going to his house tomorrow night and his wife agreed to cook some of our lobster tails.  This is quite a place!  Next update will be a report on the wedding.  We'll see how these Bahamians can party!

Overnight with Ship Wrecks - Hogsty Reef

We got held up for weather at Great Inagua last week.  Ryan has been lobbying for a visit Hogsty Reef which is a volcanic atol in the middle of the Mayaguana Passage.  Basically an extinct volcano in the middle of the six thousand foot ocean.

NW Cay - Hogsty Reef

We waited two extra days and had a 36 hour window where the seas would be calm enough to anchor in the middle of the reef.  The goal was to dive some of the 6,000 foot walls on the edge of the reef.

We left Great Inagua at first light for the 36 nautical mile trip to the reef.  We got there just after 10 am.  There was a 3 foot swell inside the reef which made anchoring and launching the tender from the flybridge a near disaster.  We got suited up and were in the water by 11 am.  We immediately checked out the coral heads near Top Shelf that was anchored

Exploring the Sand Cayy

in 15 ft of water.  Nothing special there, so we headed for the walls.

There was over 120 foot visibility at the wall and the view was breathtaking.  Ryan tells me that usually a wall's drop off will start at 100 feet.  Hogsty's wall started at 45 feet.  I was thrilled to be able to dive down and look over the edge.  I couldn't help thinking of Crawford Notch in New Hampshire.  This was a lot like that wall, just when you jumped off of the side, you were suspended.  Very very cool.

Top Shelf With Wreck in Background

Ryan dove to 100 feet and started making Grouper calls.  This is a noise you make with your throat that sound like a grouper fish.  Immediately he had Wahoo, Jacks, Grouper and Reef Sharks all visiting.  He took pictures as he made a slow ascent to the surface.

After our diving and just before sunset Ryan and I made a trip to the small island called Northwest Cay.  The island is all sand, about an acre in size, with a concrete unlit marker.  There were hundreds of dead birds, so we figured this was another bird

WWII Liberty Ship - Aground July 1963

Liberty Ship Before Grounding

rookery for some sort of ocean going tern.

The sun was setting as we returned the tender to Top Shelf amidst the wreckage of two major ships and dozens of other hulls washed up on the surrounding reef.  I couldn't help thinking how many sailors lost their lives on this reef, and who was responsible for the navigational error.

Sunrise over NW Cay

We went to bed early because the 3 foot swells made it too difficult to read or do anything else.  We left the next morning at first light with a beautiful sunrise over Northwest Cay as we left Hogsty Reef on our way to Abraham's Bay at Mayaguana.

Spearfishing 101

I haven't talked a lot about my training with Ryan Meyers.  Ryan is the 2017 North American Spear

3 Min Breath-Up on Surface

Fishing Champion and travels the world spear fishing.  He is very much like a friend of mine Eric Steward, who is an professional captain and world class fisherman.  Both of these guys are expert in their fields and are willing to give information away to help improve the sports participants.

We dive three days, then we take a day off.  Those are the days you see when we go ashore.  We dive 6 hours a day, clean fish, and talk about spear fishing and free diving.  This has not been an easy thing to learn. 

1 Foot Entry to Start Dive

First, you have to be able to hold your breath.  I trained for the last 3 months at home doing static breath holds.  My longest static breath hold was 3:20.  My longest dive on this trip was 1:05.  The time difference between the two is first you are laying on your couch completely relaxed, the second you are in the water and moving.  The goal is to "breath-up" on the surface with your snorkel, then dive using as little energy as possible.  This is much harder than I ever thought.

Decent While Equalizing

The second is ear equalization.  As you dive deeper than 6 feet, the water pressure pushes on your eardrums and the pressure must be equalized from your eustachian tubes.  This is easy enough on an airplane or with SCUBA equipment, hold your nose and exhale hard, but when free diving, the air is compressed in your lungs and you can't blow hard to clear your ears.  You have to use your tongue as a piston to move the air in your mouth past your soft palate and into the tubes.  This again was practiced at home for over two months to be able to do this.

The third is having the proper technique to start the decent with as little effort as possible while at the same time holding your nose so you can equalize on the way down.

Resting at the Bottom

The final and hardest one for me, that I am still working on, is when you get to the bottom below 35 feet, you feel like you have no air left in your lungs.  At this point, you are well past two times the normal pressure at the surface, and your lungs have compressed that much.  To overcome this, you must lay on the bottom and "rest" for a few seconds before continuing the dive.  If this isn't done properly, you'll swim to the surface.  Once I learned to rest at the bottom, my dive time went from 25 seconds to a minute.

Nassau Grouper

Ryan has been extremely patient with the "old guy".  He has never trained someone this old, or for this long.  Some days he just shakes his head as I make the same mistakes over and over again.  But when I shot my first fish at 40 feet, he said "now your starting to look like a diver".  That was a big compliment for me...

Yellow Fin Grouper

Road Salt & Lighthouses

Frensel Lens Mount

Light House Looking North

It's Tuesday afternoon and we are anchored at Abraham's Bay on the south shore of Mayaguana.  Getting ready for the first strong weather front of the season.  We dove the anchor earlier today and put out 180 ft of chain rode anticipating the big blow.  Wind is blowing 30 knots right now.  Wind will continue to clock to the right and blow until our next weather window on Sunday.    Then it will be 60 nm to Turks & Caicos and a flight home for Christmas.

Cable for Rotation Weight

Chance Brothers Lighthouses

As part of our Great Inagua tour last Friday, Casper (mentioned in the previous blog) dropped us off at the Great Inagua Light House.  The lighthouse is in operation today using an LED light.  The light house was constructed in 1870 by Chance Brothers out of England.  The light used a Frenzel lens and a 4 wick kerosene flame.  The lens rotated and the flame stayed stationary.  The lens rotated by a gear mechanism driven by a large weight that descended through the middle of

Kerosene Tanks 20 Feet Below Light

the light house circular staircase.  The weight had to be cranked back up every hour and kerosene had to be pumped to the top of the lighthouse with a hand crank.   The two light keepers were very busy all night.

I mentioned the Morton Salt Operation that produces the road salt used all along the USA East Coast.  The operation pumps 500 thousand gallons of salt water ever day into canals that move the water for 30 months through various very shallow salt ponds.  These salt ponds take up about half of the island and on a sunny day, clouds form from the water evaporating.  As the water evaporates, the salt concentration gets higher and after two and a half years, the salt is concentrated enough to drain to a processing pond.  Pumps drain the pond, then once the pond is dry, they use a road grader to pile the salt in long rows, then a harvester is used to load mining trucks to bring it to the salt pile you see in the picture.

Road Salt Headed for Massachusetts

It took them 5 days to load the salt ship, but it left Saturday night, and the workers were off for Sunday, so we decided to dive around the piers.  I got  the biggest lobster of the trip right off of
the platform.

We finally got our weather window Monday morning and off to The largest ships graveyard in the Bahamas:  Hogstay Reef.

Pink Flamingos Fly Over Dikes on a Morton Salt Pond

Big Lobster off the Morton's Plant

Sam Scouting a World Record Black Jack

How Am I Doing?

Sam"s Flamingo Pose

I’ve been talking to a lot of folks over the last few days via Satellite Phone.  Anyone who wants to call and catch up can reach me on the boat at 781-384-5006.  Phone is usually on between 7am and 10am and then at night from 4pm until we go to bed around 9pm.

Casper:  The Park Warden

Folks are asking how I am doing, so I thought I’d take a moment to give you some insight.  Here is an example.  I called the Bahamas National Trust Warden for Great Inagua and asked him if he would give us a tour or the national park.  He’s not too busy, so he met us at 9 am yesterday.  Great Inagua is the breeding ground for the Pink Flamingo and he is the warden trying to keep the locals from killing them.  I guess they taste like chicken.

Jim's Flamingo Pose???

As our tour got to lunchtime, we stopped at his aunt’s restaurant.  There was a big sign that says “Ice Coffee Available”.  We were all thirsty and an ice coffee sounded great.  I said, “We’ll have 4 ice coffees”.  The aunt said, “No ice coffee today”.  We all looked at each other and laughed as there was a coffee maker, coffee and an ice maker all sitting right on the counter behind her.

This story explains the last 6 weeks on the boat.  We are so used to running at 60 miles per hour, we expect great service, we produce great things, but our stress levels match the speedometer.  There is a reason we have the greatest economy on earth.

Flamingos Just Starting to Breed

Down here, if they don’t feel like doing something, it just doesn’t get done….period.  There are more houses in these islands that are half finished, none are insured, and there is no real estate value for houses on most of these islands.  Long Island, one of the more progressive islands in the Southern Bahamas, has not had a house sell for the last 28 months.  If you own land or a building, you may have got it from your family, but it has no liquid value.

So how have I made the adjustment to this culture?  Great question…

Salt Pond Has 50k Flamingos in 2 weeks

At first I felt like I was on vacation, so you didn’t think about it, but now I’m pulled in two directions.  Most Bahamians have nothing, but they don’t have any initiative to make something of their lives.  There are a few industrious ones.  They are the ones that own the fishing boats or have some sort of government appointment.  The rest seem to do nothing, have nothing, but are the happiest and nicest people I have ever met.  This experience has definitely shown me another side of the human race and it's not a bad one.

I don’t think I could make the transition at this point in my life, but those happy & giggling school kids, in their uniforms, that were in the aunt’s restaurant (she provided the school lunch) don’t really have it that bad…At least by their standards.

Sometimes You Find a Gem: Cay Verde

Top Shelf"s Track from Florida  - 536 nautical miles

As we left the sad remains of Ragged Island, we set our sites on an overnight passage to the south east and Great Inagua Island.  We hope this island will have a better economy which we believe it will as this is the source or Morton Salts raw materials.

I'm sitting here at anchor in the NW corner of the island.  We are anchored "Bahama Style" with

Cay Verde - Flat Calm

anchors both front and rear as we are trying to keep the anchor chain from tangling on the coral heads that surround us.  We are literally 30 yards from the shore.  So close that we were worried about bugs from the mangroves.  None so far.

On our trip here yesterday, Ryan had found a tiny island 50 miles off shore from Ragged Island when looking at Google Earth.  Ryan finds most of our fishing spots by studying the surrounding areas for reef formations.  Not just any reef, there are specific things he looks for in the reef.  He can tell me what fish will be there days before we go.He does this for tournaments all over the

Frigate Birds - Cay Verde

world.  You can see by past blog pictures, finding fish with this research works.

The tiny island he found has a name:  Cay Verde.  It is a tiny island that looked to have a beach.  No mention of this in any cruising guide and it barely shows up on navigational charts.  But it was there, and if the conditions were right, we were going to explore above and below the water.

Cay Verde - North Shore

We left Ragged Island with east winds at 10 kts gusting to 15 kts.  In addition, we had a 3-4 foot swell from weather to our east.  As we left the Ragged Island Cut, we gave ourselves 20% chance of anchoring at Cay Verde.

As the morning went on, the winds calmed and 30 minutes before we arrived the ocean went flat calm, I mean like a lake.  Still had 1 foot swells, but not a breath of air.

Ryan Leading the Hike

We slowly approached the beach with Top Shelf at slower than coasting.  We had no tender in the water to look for a path between the coral heads.  We had put the tender on the roof for the long overnight trip, and we would launch it only if we could anchor.  The water here was the clearest I had ever seen and Ryan said it may be the clearest water in the world.

We made it through the coral heads and found sand right off the beach.  There was no current and the anchor dropped like a stone.  We let out 5:1 scope, set the anchor, launched the tender and off we went.

Alfred Hitchcock - The Birds

I had told Ryan that if we were able to fish here, I would drive the tender and Sam and Ryan would fish.  This was Ryan's chance to fish blue water.  150 foot drop off were the pelagic fish like Wahoo roam.

Ryan set out the teasers and attracted two Wahoo, but they never got close enough for a shot.

At 3:30, we were out of the water, made a quick change to hiking gear, and Sam dropped us on the
beach to explore.  The island was about 100 feet high and this was obviously a nesting place for Frigate Birds.  We had been seeing these birds from as far out as 10 miles hunting the waters off of the island.  We were about to get a big surprise.

Frigates Nesting

As we climbed the hill, we found a very unique green plant along with knee high cactus.  At the top of the hill was the nesting place for the frigate birds.  Hundreds, possibly a thousand birds were in the area.  I asked Ryan if he had ever seen Alfred Hichcock's thriller "The Birds".  He had no idea what I was talking about.  I was in the movie right now!

We got close enough for some of the mama birds to leave the nest so we could see the eggs.  The camera is zoomed in as we didn't want to disturb anything.  After a few minutes, it was  4:35 and we had to get past the coral heads by sundown, or we would be stuck there for the night. 

My Favorite Pic

We got back to shore, Sam picked us up in the tender, we loaded it on the top deck, raised anchor and outside the coral heads on our way to Great Inagua by the time the sun touched the horizon.

Softest Beach Sand Ever

How long will these footsteps be there?