A long Bahama trip in a small boat

[cdavisdb]

Well, it wasn't as far as the Sea of Cortez, but I'll steal some of Bruce Browns title, anyway. It was one heck of a trip, 31 days,450 miles out to San Salvador, a little farther coming back, 180 hours on the engine. Don't ask about the fuel bill. Great freediving all along the way. Some of it was world class, a privilege to be there. It takes a while to tell the tale, so relax and enjoy.

When does the idea for a trip like this begin? Twenty-five years ago, when I got my first(and last) look at the mind boggling diving in the southern Bahamas? Eighteen years back when I acquired a Bahama capable 24 Seabird? One attempt and I knew the Seabird wasn't enough boat for that trip. Patience and belief were needed. I was good at the latter but very bad at patience. Then came the Seafari 25. That one can do it. Four years worth of ever longer trips and I was ready. San Salvador was in my sights.

The plan was to string together several sets of divers,. The boat was my 25 Seafari, 'Someday Came,” of course. First set of divers for two weeks plus, Ft Lauderdale to San Salvador then back to
Georgetown, Exuma, with stops at Conceptcion and Rum Cay. All three world class dive spots. Drop the divers in Georgetown, pick up my wife, a week through the Exumas, drop my wife in Nassau, pick up two more divers and spend a week diving our way home. Dolphin diving on the last two days. Pulling all this off, given the vagueries of weather, airlines, boats, Bahamian efficiency, yada ,yada, was going to be some trick.

Everything came together wonderfully. Ted and Simon, both extremely competent divers and long time crew on other trips, jumped at the chance to do the first leg. My wife's schedule allowed. Two other divers, a father son team, signed up for the last leg. The weather looked perfect. El Nino was keeping the hurricanes away. The boat checked out great, and I started getting very nervous. This was way too easy.

Sure enough, a month before take off day, Ted hit a major personal problem and was out. Where in the world was I going to find a diver with the right combination of time, diving skill, boating experience, personality and cash on that kind of short notice? Ted volunteered his share of the expenses, which helped, that wasn't the major problem. The trip needs three to make the diving work right(one guy driving the boat and two diving). I emailed or called everybody who had ever made a trip with me or wanted to, all the divers I knew and some I didn't, Even asked them to ask their friends. No takers and only about 3 weeks to go. Desperation was setting in. Then I remembered a CSC member I had corresponded with several years before. A Palm Beach spearo, so I knew he was a pretty good diver and seemed like a nice guy. He owned a Seafari (Father Franks old boat), so he had to be ok. I PMed him and HALALEUYA, he could go. Kudos to his very understanding wife. Matt, Tiny on CSC, turned out to be a great shipmate, a real addition to the trip. Luck was working my way again.

The weather on take-off day was so good you could have gone to Bimini in a jet ski and it stayed like that all the way to Conceptcion. We ran pretty hard all the way down, stopping each day to do a little diving and collect some seafood. Some places I knew and some I did not, like Dog Rocks in the Exumas, where you can throw a rock from the island to 100+ feet of water. Nice ledge, but a cloudy day and we (especially me) were not in shape to really appreciate the depth. Tried a cave in the southern Exumas which promised to be as good as some of the springs I dive in Central Florida. It wasn't, dark, poor vis, generally spooky. I'll pass next time. Stopped in Georgetown to resupply and then it was on to the the main event, starting at Conceptcion. We got there on the morning of the 5th day and immediately went north to a big reef that I remembered as spectacular. Time had not been kind to it. Mostly dead coral and no fish, as in zero, not even any small fish. Never saw anything like it. Matt did get a huge(7 lb) lobster, so we ate well that night.

Next morning we tried the walls on the south end of the island and hit pay dirt. Good vis, healthy coral and spectacular terrain. It was fairly deep and I was pleased to realize how much better diver I had become since I'd been there in 1989. The wall started around 60 ft, more or less vertical to 110 or so then straight down. On top of the wall were these gigantic coral heads that extended out over the edge of the wall, 60 + feet wide and tops at 40 ft or so, bottoms blending into the wall at about 80. You remember your childhood dreams of flying like Peter Pan? Well, freediving this stuff was like that. You could dive vertically to 50 or so, level out and fly along and around these coral heads, dropping slowly, vibrant corals of all sorts on one side, bottomless blue on the other, fish all around. You would come around the head as you dropped to 80 or so, to see another gigantic coral head in your path, rearing up 40 feet high above you. Underwater, it looked a lot higher than that. Just an incredible visual feast and what I came for.

Of course, nothing is perfect. The wind had hauled around to the south and picked up, so that a significant chop was coming from offshore of the wall. When it arrived, it jacked way up, very square and made the boat driver, Simon in this case, extremely uncomfortable. The 25 has a pretty good roll and those conditions made it crazy.. I was so enamored with the underwater scenery that I hardly noticed until I looked up and could see the keel out of the water. I think Simon was a little spooked (rightly so).

What a day!!!!!!!!!, but the next looked like more south wind, so we decided to go on the San Salvador, which had better sheltered walls.

More to come.

[YeA 20sF]

Wow great read, sounds like something I would love to do myself one day. Any pics ?

[flyingfrizzle]

what a trip, cant wait to hear more!

[DonV]

Very nice Conner. Waiting on chapter two.

[Snookerd]

Waiting for the next trip invite! I always look forward to reading your trip report. This years sounds like it's once again over-the-top!

[cdavisdb]

It was. Lots of pics and videos, but I'm so tech challenged that it will take me a while to figure out how to get them on here.

[77SceptreOB]

Outstanding!

[kmoose]

Sounds like the makings of a summer adventure movie.

Maybe some of us should start thinking of a similar group excursion. It would take some planning and commitment, but I think there are some here, including myself that would be up for such an adventure.... and even more so as a group (fleet).

[cdavisdb]

Running from Conceptcion to San Sal was the only rough passage of the trip, about 40 miles, wind on the beam around 18 knts, sea 3-5 and surprisingly confused. Bumpy and wet, but no cause to slow down, even a little bit.

In San Salvador, we were finally back in the Bahama Out Islands I remembered. Poor development, very nice people, very limited stores, bad water, little ice available, hotter than blazes on land. I felt right at home. We refueled and went back out to dive the walls in the middle of the western shore.
Again disappointed, sick coral, few fish, and the wall started deeper than advertised, 60 instead of 40. Fun diving if you had never seen a wall, but I'd seen better. Then we ran up to the north end for a couple of days to explore, get out of the tourist areas and shoot some fish. Fish were slim, but we had little trouble loading several days worth of fish and conch to go with it. Scenery wasn't as spectacular, but coral was healthier and much more fish of all sorts. The wind was blowing pretty good for a couple of days, then started to die off. Time to try our luck on the south end of the island. Ran down there and dove an inside spot that was real nice, max depth less than 100, nice cliff, sheltered from the wind, which was still blowing. It really slowed down that night and the next morning we hauled around to French Bay, on the windward side. The wall diving was just plain beyond belief.

The current runs parallel to the wall, 1-1.5 knots, top of the wall in about 50, deep crevasses cut into the wall 20-30 feet deep, some just wide enough to swim into, some 40 ft wide. The bottom of these crevasses sloped down at about a 45 degree angle and they end on the wall at 100-120. Everything is covered with hard corals, soft corals, all around are big schools of horseeye jacks, sharks, grouper, turtles, and school after school of other kinds of reef fish. You could not decide what to look at next.
Visibility was about 80 ft on top, but much clearer below the top of the wall. As soon as you dropped below the lip – BOING – stuff that was far away in the hazy distance was suddenly so close you felt like you could touch it, way over 100 ft, hard to say how much.

Laying on the surface, waiting to dive,a crevasse would appear in the distance. Dive quick and you could arrive at the top of the crevasse just as the current swept you up to it. Drop into the crevasse and the current stopped, turn left and fly down the crevasse. The narrow ones were twisty so that you could not see very far in front of you until you came around a corner and there was the intense electric blue of the open ocean far out in front. Simon was in his element, coming out of a crevasse at 90+, turning right and flying further along the wall before he finally had to come up. I was stopping a 80 or so, shorter and shallower dives, but still fabulous.

Sometimes a big school of horseeyes would come blasting out of a deep crevasse and ball up around us as we started down. That was too good an opportunity, so we would stop in mid dive and play with them. Lots of sharks, off in the distance. Some turtles, big hawksbills and not shy. You could swim right up to them. They were used to scuba divers and could not quite figure us out. We moved way to fast.

At this point, Matt was getting good. He had not been all that much of a deep diver, but Simon taught him an equalization technique called “mouthfil” Works fabulous if you can do it (which I can't), and he was getting deeper and deeper, staying longer and longer. I watched all this with more than a little green around the ears. He learned the technique almost immediately and I've been trying for a long time.


Vis was best in the morning (usually was, not sure why). We did a morning session and an afternoon session on this wall. Afternoon vis got down to 50 or so on top and finally stopped us. We should have gone back the next day, but that was Sunday, no stores open and the boat had developed a leak in the power steering ram and I needed to buy some more fluid. That was the only mechanical failure of the trip, so I should not complain, but it made a mess. I went through a gallon and a half of fluid before we got home, was soaking it up with the few oilsorb cloths on board, wringing them out, storing the goo in old milk jugs and reusing the cloths.

Note on bad Volvo engineering. The belt for the hydraulic steering pump also turns the internal water pump, gotta have it to run the boat. Run out of fluid, seize the pump and the engine is down. there isn't any way to remove the pump and still tighten the belt, even if you had the right size. My old volvo did not have this weakness.

We had planned to get water in San Sal, but the dock water was undrinkable and buying bottled water was both difficult(getting to the store and back) and expensive. Supplies were tight for an extra week without resupply, so we took on some bad water and crossed our fingers we'd make Georgetown.

Anyway it was time to move on, Rum Cay was calling. I had done a very little diving there in 1988-89 and was eager to get back.

[kmoose]

I know of the volvo belt issue but it can be overcome with a belt small enough to fit the water pump and drive pulley. You have to "bump" it on with a screwdriver but works.