Second Bahamas trip

[cdavisdb]

Second Bahama trip in my 25 ft Seafari. “Someday Came.” My initial impression is confirmed; this is as close to perfect a boat for me as I can imagine. Outstanding performance and 3 divers can dive, eat and sleep aboard for 10-12 days and not be ready to kill each other. Its one great boat.

Three in the crew, me, Simon, a British/Chilean spearfisherman who is serious good at it, and Josh, northern California diver and the one who knew how to find dolphins.

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.

If you are a diver and have not experienced dolphin diving, do whatever it takes to find some. It is truly amazing. Doing loop-de-loops, fast, with two 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 favorite meal (some kind of fish under the sand). They would swivel their heads as they scanned, turning heads sideways far more than you would suspect they could.

Turns out dolphin kids are just as disobedient as humans. We had a couple of babies who kept coming back to play, soon followed by mom who took them away again.

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 at the southeastern tip of Abaco that 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!!! was 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 almost as fast as the boat would go, pushing 35 knots, made it just in time. Very nice people. The price was, understandably, 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, very big sharks, 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, I just can't do very much of it. The weather would have allowed a visit to an adjacent, shallower 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 very 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 only 50 yards 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, big sharks, most of the snappers, none of them very spooky, a very live place. This area 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.

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+ with the wind so strong that it was blowing through the boat from the stern and at a good clip. It must have been close to 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 BASRA, 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. A place where 2 good shooters could put over 400 lbs of fish in the boat in a couple of hours. Been there, done that. But, you 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, the 26th, with the wind rising. Nice easy run, but the next day would have been interesting.

The boat handled great. Strick is right, this one takes more attention to the wheel than most boats, especially in a following sea. If you come down vertical, all is astonishingly peaceful, but if the boat is even a little off vertical, it will bang. Its easy enough to come down vertical because the boat is so sensitive to turning the wheel, just takes a little practice. Also, going slow in a short steep chop, the boat wants to stick its nose under the next wave. I suspect it could act like a submarine in the wrong circumstances. I had learned a lot about how to drive the boat and it was a much smoother trip even though the weather was often worse than last trip. Strick's comments on stability don't match my impressions, but that may well be a function of what boats we know. I've never been in a 23, just lots of time in a 20. For sure, the 25 is much less stable than my old 24 Seabird (24 degree deadrise), which was a very stable boat for its deadrise. I'm hoping much bigger tabs will calm the 25 down.

Again, I found the boat astonishingly dry. We had the windows open almost the whole time and only twice got more than fine mist on our faces. Fuel economy was way off, about 2 kmpg, but I haven't had time to explore why.

One discovery. Everything on the boat that I haven't replaced is 1972 original or at least old. I have been running it fairly hard and stuff is breaking. Hardly surprising, but unpleasant when the pedestal for the seat breaks off at the floor.

Connor

When the other guys get the links up for their video, I'll post the Utube address.

[Bushwacker]

Connor,

What an awesome trip! Very well written description of it as well! It's great see that boat "used as intended"! Love the "astonishingly peaceful" ride description! Confirms my suspicions that the Seafari 25 is indeed the ideal Bahamas cruiser!

BTW, how much gas did you carry? I've run into that "No gaas, mon!" as well, at Walkers one time, even after we had checked the day before to make sure they had gas! They finally sold us enough to make Cooperstown; got the impression that, if we had spent the night in the marina, they would have sold us all we wanted!
Denny

[77SceptreOB]

Great article. I thought i was there with you as I read it. Thanks!! What an adventure!

[Rainmaker]

Sounds like a great trip. The key to the fuel issues is to get to know a few of the locals. They run out of fuel every so often, but if you are pals with the proper folks you can always find some. I know where I go, I normally get a day or 2s notice on low fuel (may run out) and better than that I get a heads up that the price is going up a day before it does so I can fill up and save .25 a gallon.

Sounds like you had a great time... Can't wait to see the u-tube....

[Blue_Heron]

Sounds like a great trip, Connor. As Denny said, you did a great job describing the experience. Got any pics to go with it?
Dave

[cdavisdb]

Thanks, guys. Glad you enjoyed it. It was almost as much pleasure to write up as it was to do it. About next June, I'll have another trip to post.

Fuel: I carry 92 usable plus 13 more in jerry cans (that were empty) Normal fuel consumption I probably could have done HITW from Bimini, but not like it was.

I could tell from talking to the guy at the fuel dock that there was more to the story, it just took a bit of asking around to find out what we needed.

Pics: I'm not much of a photographer, but have a few. If the other crew doesn't post their videos soon, I'll put something up.

Connor

[strick]

What a trip! I had to look up the places and fish you talked about as I was reading the story. I hope to make an extended trip to the Sea of Cortez sometime in the next year or so. You got me fired up! I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures/videos as well. Were all three of you able to sleep in the V berth? or does one take turns sleeping on the deck?

I have not had a chance to get my boat out in the ocean yet so I don't know how it will be on the drift in swells. The boat is heavier and has a larger foot print at rest compared to the 23 which is why I think it feels more stable to me. Interesting comment about stuffing the bow. Here are a couple quote's from some e mail's I received a while ago from Member "Big fluke" who you probably already know owns three 25 seafari's.

Quote:

"Bottom line is that with a LCG of 37% of waterline length, we get the same speed as one set up race boat style at 27% LCG. Design lightship is 5300# and max displacement 7500#. While we have played with other hulls that have as good a head sea ride it is an unbelievable hull that even at these full load displacements we haven't been able to stuff the boat running down sea"


Quote:

"The boat as moulded and manufactured needs a lot of forward weight for stability and performance. Moesly anticipated a self-regulating ballast system for the boat which was never put into production. You need to be very careful in your weight distributions or the boat will chine walk, pitch and porpoise in the "as received" condition. If you get the balance right, its performance and seakeeping will be simply awesome.

strick

[cdavisdb]

Outstanding information, Strick. Thanks for posting that.

I've looked pretty close at the Sea of Cortez (dream stuff from this far away) and it looks perfect for a 25 seafari trip. Go for it!

Glad to know I'm unlikey to stuff the bow. The boat rides interesting in a following sea. We were running just faster than the wave speed and often the bow would sink into the face of the wave in front till it looked from my vantage point, like it was only 3 or 4 inches below the deck. A lot of boats get squirrely as heck under those conditions, but not this one. It never felt anything other that solid comfortable and perfectly responsive to the helm.

Having known about the CG issues, I loaded the boat so that early in the trip there is at least 800 lbs of passengers and load forward of the normal CG, plus I burn the aft tank first. It did not need much tab to keep the bow down nicely. Later in the trip (most of the water gone from forward) I discovered that moving one large crew member forward only about 4 feet made a very noticeable difference in how she handled and in speed.

Sleeping arrangements: the long bunks are truly wonderful, two guys can sleep comfortably there, but I prefer the deck on diving trips. Take one ground cloth for water proofing, a large self inflating mattress, nice pillows and the deck is the best bunk in the boat. Since I snore, I think the other guys approved.

Videos are up, I'll see if I can publish a link.

Connor

[cdavisdb]

These are the best of the dolphin vids. Just click on the link.

More to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yyIw...layer_embedded

[gofastsandman]

Nice trip and well written.

I can`t get dolphins to swim with me and I`m Sandy...very sad.

What fun you had.

Cheers,
GFS