Bahamas aboard "Someday Came"

[cdavisdb]

Well, 2012s Bahama trip is done. We are happy, exhausted, a lot skinnier and with big smiles on all our faces. Its a tale of great diving, weather both great and real bad, stupidity and a great boat.

Wonderful crew. Ted, from Wisconsin, who makes a trip with me every year. Excellent diver, can stay down forever, one of the best spearfishermen I've had the pleasure of diving with, and knowledgeable small boat operator. Simon, from Santiago Chile, 50 meter diver, freediving instructor, another serious spearo. I've learned a lot, diving with these guys.

The trip was supposed to be 12 days, out to Hole in the Wall for a week, then back to Bimini for a couple of days of dolphin diving. Debbie, that vicious, misbegotten bitch who just would not leave, messed that up. Cut the trip a couple of days short and eliminated Hole in the Wall. On take off day conditions were so nasty I wasn't sure I could even get to Ft Lauderdale on the highway. I called the crew and told them to find a hotel, we were screwed.


The next morning, things were better, but a long way from nice. I beat it over to Ft Lauderdale, picked up the crew and put the boat in the water, even though it was clear nobody in a 25 ft boat was going to going to Bimini that day. We puttered down to Miami, hoping for a better angle to Bimini, a wind shift and a better forecast. Forecast got worse, but another day cooped up on a very small boat and my crew would have strung me up. The next morning early, we went out to edge of the Stream to see if crossing was possible. Getting to deep water was brutal, pounding like heck in square confused waves. Once outside, it actually looked pretty good, 3-5 ft, wind 15 knots, both slightly behind the beam. Piece of cake, but I did not think through what it might be like in Bimini after 4 or 5 days of strong southerlies, not smart. So, we took off and it was down right nice for most of the trip. Then the wind got up, waves increased to 5-8 and breaking hard, not just the wave tops. Nasty, but not dangerous, fairly easy to steer around the breaking ones. It did not feel all that rough, but must have been. I got knocked out of the chair once. Actually twice, but the first time I was trying to steer with one hand and eat trail mix with the other. Doesn't count. The wind really got up, looked like a solid twenty five knots. Briefly it was blasting the wave tops into spray that looked like smoke. I have no idea how fast that was, but a whole lot more than 30, for sure.

After that "fun" ride, we arrived outside of Bimini. I was worried about the transition from deep to shallow water, but that was no problem. Next, the pass........... Breaking all the way across. There are two passes into North Bimini, a natural one which is deeper, but requires going parallel to the waves( I could not see any sign of it in the breakers) and a marked, used to be dredged, one that is nice and short, but shallow. What I should have done was gone around the corner to South Bimini and sat on my boat til the weather cleared, but I hadn't thought that one through, either. In we went, the waves didn't look all that large from behind( I know better than this) and I had run rough inlets before (a few times a long time ago). I lined up so the waves would stay directly behind me, cutting across the channel diagonally. All was fine until we were almost through, but I had let the boat speed drop too low. I think we clipped the edge of a bar that intruded into the channel, because I was reading some very shallow water and all of a sudden a big boy jacked up behind us. Crew said it was 8 or 9 feet, I was too busy to look, Crew yelled and the stern began lift, I gunned it as the boat started to go sideways and the wave broke on the dive platform, sending a whole bunch of water into the cockpit. Any other boat would have broached, rolled over and we'd be dead. Thank you Carl Moesly for saving my stupid ass. Carla, if you read this, please pass that on to your father.

After that excitement, we sat in North Bimini all day, no way I was going out that pass again. But even in Bimini Harbor, a diligent diver can eat well. We pigged out that night on local seafood.

Debbie finally slipped away in the night and all was beautiful the next morning. We took off early for Riding Rock, thirty miles south. The next 5 days were outstanding, mostly flat calm, adequate visibility, lots of fish , healthy reef and very very good eating. Conditions were good enough to use the kicker much of the time for following the divers. We spent a lot of time in shallow, scouting bottom in 35-40 ft. and did a little deeper diving on some 50-60 ft high relief stuff that was very very pretty. A kind of diving I love, going slow, very relaxed, long bottom times. One of those spots also harbored a gargantuan shark. The other guys were in the water, so I missed it. You don't see many very large ones. Vis wasn't good enough for anything deeper.

I was using a new fin, Ron Smith's Dolfin. Its a monofin in which your feet go in bike shoes attached to an aluminum frame on the other end of which( 6 inches behind your toes) is an aluminum foil like an airplane wing. Scimitar wingtips and it resembles a horizontal tuna tail about 2.5 ft wide. Completely weird looking piece of kit, but it works great. Mine is the prototype. There aren't more than half a dozen production units in the whole world. I will probably be hanging up my longfins and switching to this gadget for almost all my diving. The thing has another nice characteristic, dolphins are fascinated by it. I had a big bottle nose dolphin, which usually don't have much to do with divers, come up close, take one look at me and another long look at the fin before he took off. We thought this as a very good sign for how the spotted dolphins might react, and so it was.

Next, we ran back to Bimini for fuel and set out for dolphins. Day one was fabulous. We found'em in just over an hour and soon had 6 or 8 around the boat, playing with the divers when we dove down and sometimes just chilling with us on the surface. Hard to explain how cool just chilling with dolphins can be. I was driving the boat at first, but switched off with one of the crew after 30 minutes or so. When I got in the water with the fin and started stroking with it the dolphins went nuts, coming from all directions to see what it was. Almost immediately, there were at least 10 dolphins swirling around me. I was diving down and turning as fast as I could, dolphins in my face, touching distance away, all the time. It didn't last long, three dives and I was completely winded. The dolphins calmed down pretty quick, but WOW!!!! just incredible. They stayed with us for a while, then took off in the direction of Indigo, a live aboard dive boat that specializes in dolphins. We followed and they came back to us for a while, then went back to Indigo. Overall, we spent about an hour and a half that day with dolphins. One of the crew has an hour of in the water dolphin video. Quite an experience.

Day 2 started very well, we found some in 15 minutes, but never found the big group, Just pairs of jazzed up teenagers who were very fun to play with. That evening we went up to Indigo and the Captain swam over. He is a freediver, had heard about the fin, seen it through his binoculars and was as curious as the dolphins. Nice guy, Turned out we had quite a few mutual friends. The universe of serious freedivers is amazingly small. He gave us a bunch of info that I will put to good use next year. Day 3 was just one of those days, a little windy and we never could find'em. Oh well, by 1 pm it was time to leave. One of the crew had a plane to catch, so we headed back to Ft Lauderdale in easy conditions, dropped him and continued on to Miami to do a lobster dive that is one of my favorites and one which I had not had a chance to do in years.

This is NOT a normal lobster dive. It's at night, for a different, smaller species. The water is very shallow, waves and surge rolling you over big rocks covered with barnacles and fire coral. Lots of current. In addition to normal dive gear, required dress includes blue jeans, a heavy fatigue shirt, thick boots, and leather gloves. Even so, if you are not bleeding at the end of this you haven't been trying hard enough. And the lobster are very very abundant. I won't tell you what a normal catch is, you would not believe me. Suffice to say, wrong time, wrong tide, wrong moon, can't get to the best area because of current, a couple of gear failures and I caught about 40 in an hour an a half. We lost a few through a hole in the bag, so the count is iffy. They are extremely fast and my buddy, who is an super smooth and effective spearo(wrong strategy for these critters) was pretty frustrated. I think he caught four, which is not bad for a beginner. And the best part is stuffing your face with lobster at one in the morning. They also taste much much much better that regular lobster. It is a completely hilarious, goofy dive which is the complete opposite of either freediving or spearfishing. I love it

The next morning, up to Lauderdale, drop Simon at Divers Direct( what a place to browse ) and back to Sarasota.

Pics and videos will have to wait til the other guys get their stuff together. Might be a while, Simon is on the way to Europe and Ted is a perfectionist with his videos. Believe me, its worth waiting for. I'll post links when they are available.

A good time was had by all.

[gofastsandman]

Cousteau was a weekly watch as a squid. So nice to go there now. Schools of Mahi the size of fingers.

Sweet,
GFS

[McGillicuddy]

Connor,

Me thinks Papa Hemingway and Zane Grey are smilin o'er your prose. What a great read. Enjoyed every letter. Love to see the fin. Can't wait for the viddy.

I know a couple of local talented spearos that work 25-30 meters in La Jolla but 50M !

Thanks for posting get some pics up while we await the viddy.

Cheers

McG

[Ryan]

Arent you a little early for lobsters?

[Blue_Heron]

Originally Posted by Ryan

Arent you a little early for lobsters?

Spanish Lobster. No closed season except in some sanctuary areas.

Good post, Connor. Looking forward to pics and vids.

Dave

[Bushwacker]

Originally Posted by cdavisdb

. . . The wind really got up, looked like a solid twenty five knots. Briefly it was blasting the wave tops into spray that looked like smoke. I have no idea how fast that was, but a whole lot more than 30, for sure. . .

Connor,

Sounds like another awesome trip, and a GREAT description of it, by the way! I think Gillie's right. . . you've been hiding quite a writing talent from us! Looking forward to the video!

From your description of wind/wave direction, I'm guessing wind direction was basically S or SSW if you were heading due E or ENE? Don't know the Miami-Bimini course; have never made that run. The Beaufort Scale has a pretty good description of sea state that seems to match yours:

Wind Force 7 (Near Gale): "Sea heaps up and white foam from breaking waves begins to be blown in streaks along the direction of the wind." Wind speed 28-33 kts, probable wave height 14' (I think these are "fully developed" waves in open ocean where wind is blowing at this speed for at least several hours. Probably higher that what you'd see if the wind had just picked up.)

Wind Force 8 (Gale): "Moderately high waves of greater length; edges of crests break into spindrift; foam is blown in well-marked streaks along the direction of the wind." Wind 34-40 kts, probable wave height 18'.

". . .blasting the wave tops into spray that looked like smoke." sounds like " edges of crests break into spindrift" to me, so you probably encountered something like Force 8 winds!

Force 9, Strong Gale, 41-47 kt winds, says " . . . crests of waves begin to topple, tumble and roll over; spray may reduce visibility." is probably not as good a match. Denny

[WildBill]

Great Read! It's been about a dozen years since I 've been there, but you definately jogged something loose.

OH MY GOD THE FIRE CORAL!!! IT'S EVERYWHERE.

"But the bug's"; I can get em in a long sleeve shirt and gloves.

Thanks'

[cdavisdb]

The normal lobster species is Panulirus argus. The lobster we went after are Panulirus guttatus. Lots of common names, Spanish lobster, spotted lobster, speckled lobster, etc. No regulation on them. They are actually fairly common on the reefs, but nobody sees them because they only come out at night and the populations are not dense. It takes just the right, man made environment for them to get super abundant.

Denny: Wind and wave was SSW. We were traveling just north of east. I'd guess steady wind force 6 with rapidly building seas and gusts to 7 and once to 8. 40 knots peak sounds about right. Wild stuff for this boy.

[Blue_Heron]

Originally Posted by cdavisdb

No regulation on them... It takes just the right, man made environment for them to get super abundant.

There's almost no regulation on them. You can't take egg bearing females.

We see them ocassionally on the bridge we dive during mini season. They'll be hanging upside down from the underside of the ledge where the Caribbean Spiny Lobster (P. Argus) are congregating. We catch them when we can, but they don't respond the same to a tickle stick, so you have to just grab them or net them when they're within reach.

We got jumped one year by FWC when a busybody on the dock where we stay reported us for taking shorts. When the officer saw what we had, he backed off.

Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread. Connor, where are your pics?
Dave

[ct9amr]

Very cool, I would love to do that some day!