Wandering the Islands

[cdavisdb]

A different sort of trip, 12 days, 600 miles on the chart plotter, lots of exploring areas I’d never been to, plenty of very high class diving, but not so intense as usual, lots and lots of very big fish, most of whom stayed in the ocean. The wind was up for most of the trip, 12-20, but the Seafari can run in that just fine and the diving was mostly sheltered. The west side of Abaco was the destination. We spent most of the time along the reef line between Hole in the Wall and Mores Island, with a detour up to Randall’s Cay in the far northeast of the Bight of Abaco, close to Cooperstown as the crow flies, but 60 miles by water. Here is the tale.

Boat was my 25 Seafari, “Someday Came”. Crew was short a diver this year, just me and Ted B., a longtime diving buddy, much better diver than me, and excellent boat crew, from Madison, Wisconsin. Having only two required anchoring to dive, not my favorite style, but it worked reasonably well for the places we went. Ted has developed into a very popular and skilled videographer. His vids get millions of hits on Utube. He claims my boat is famous. There will be some vids of this trip, but it will take a while. I plan the trip, run the boat, dive and cook. Pictures are not in my job description. Ted is great at it, but, with a wife, two young kids, two jobs, yada, yada, he's a bit slow. Just to make it interesting, he brought 3 goPros and, since we had room, a drone, which turned out to be a very cool and useful gadget.

We left out of Ft Lauderdale on July 11, crossed to Bimini. Too much wind to find dolphins, so we went a few miles south to grab some conch and ‘summer crab” before heading for the Berry’s. Both my guaranteed honey holes failed me(first time ever), but we stumbled into plenty of big conch. July 12, off to Great Harbor in the Berrys, refuel and continue July 13 to Hole in the Wall.

Here is where the diving got serious. It turned windy about the time we got there, but the shelter is good till the winds gets south of SE, which it wasn’t, and the diving is all within max 200 yards from shore, mostly much less. BIG, beautiful ledges, bottom in 50-55 ft., tons of fish, herds, hundreds, of dog snapper, most over 20 lbs with a few up to… 50? 60? damned if I know, huge. Blue and green parrots up to 40 lbs. Numerous grouper 15-60, but so spooky there was no chance of getting close enough for a shot, even if we had wanted to. Adequate hogfish and coneys for dinner, but much less than there used to be and much more wary. We discovered that the snapper would come up in our faces if we lay still on the bottom long enough. It is extremely cool to have a 25 lb dog snapper touching distance from your eye balls. Good as it is, every time I get to this area (first time was about 18 years ago), there are less fish and more wariness. Commercial spearos are working the area, but its still better than anything I’ve seen all the way down to and including San Salvador. Still very isolated, we saw only one other boat in 4 days, and he was just going by.

Spent 3 or 4 days (they blend together) diving near Hole in the Wall, then ran up to Sandy Point for fuel and ice. From there north to the reef off Mores Island, some places I had marked before that were fabulous and some very fishy new spots. Everything was more skittish. Where I could almost tickle the groupers bellies in the past, they were so spooky that all we got was a look as they dived into their holes. Still great spots. Tons of other fish, as in thousands of everything you can imagine. A bit bumpy, what with too much fetch and 15-20 knots of wind. Anchoring to dive when the boat is jumping around like a jack rabbit on meth is less than relaxing.

At this point the drone got handy. We took some video of the boat running in a gnarly near 3 foot chop. Eventually I will get Ted to spill some raw video on those runs, have patience. The filming was tricky. The drone would only fly 30 mph. Add twenty-two knots of boat speed onto 15 knots of wind and the drone can’t keep up. Getting the timing right for the boat to interact closely with the drone turned out to be a little beyond our skill set. Typically, in the vids the sea doesn’t look near the size it was. Upwind I was going 21-22 knots, down wind 24-25 knots. Note: all the loose stuff on the dash(lots) stayed put through all of this. Good fun and I really liked seeing what the boat looks like running. You will too, one of these days.

to be continued

[cdavisdb]

The rest of the trip.


Two days of bouncing around off Mores Island was enough. We went in to get fuel, having discovered that Mores Island now has fuel and ice available(as of just last year). The place used to be extremely poor and primitive, but today, fishing is making people prosperous, lots of new roofs and whole new buildings.

At this point we discovered we had enough time to go for an area I’ve wanted to visit for 30 years. Never met anybody who had been there, but the only two exploration reports available made it sound great. Google Earth looked fabulous, so off we went to Randall’s Cay, about 50 miles north in the far NE corner of the bight of Abaco. I planned to find some coral heads to explore on the way, of which there are a bunch, but the wind was howling, bank chop was large and square and water visibility was zilch. So, no stopping till we got there.

OH MY! this place is like the Berry’s 25 years ago, darn near virgin. Totally isolated, lunch jumps on your spear while just swimming around. The water is shallow, 10-15 feet, but lots and lots and lots of life, some of it big. Its a little startling to come around a corner in 8 ft of water and confront a 15 lb male hogfish, easy shooting distance away. Every now and then a 40 lb snapper would come by. Cliffs 20-50 feet high, straight down into 10 ft of water. You could bring the boat up touching distance to the rock. Almost entirely sheltered from summer winds. Gorgeous protected coves, little beaches. Two days exploring and I was hooked. This place I’m bringing my wife back to.

The odd thing was, you could see the telephone tower at Cooperstown, and not far. You just can’t get there without an 60 mile boat ride.

We flew the drone several times to view the area and almost lost it once. If the drone looses the operators control signal, it is programmed to return to where it started and land. Sounds ok except we launched it off the boat, which wasn’t there anymore and it can’t tell the difference between land and water. Not a good prescription for a dry landing. And the drones camera was full of hi-def irreplaceable video. When the drone was up in the air, the boat passed behind a cliff. Signal lost, wild scramble to get back into line of sight and regain control. It worked, but was close. You can see on the drone video where it lost signal and started back towards its landing point and when Ted was struggling with it, trying to regain control. It did not want to let go of the idea of landing. Chaos.

Ahh, but time grows short and I wanted to put one of those dog snapper in the boat. So, back to Hole in the Wall for a day and a half more diving. The fish gods smiled on us and we each put a nice snapper, 15 and 16 lbs, in the boat. Could have put more. Mine was riding a good bit of luck. I shoot a pretty wimpy sling these days and the spear brained the fish, but dog snapper have very hard heads and the spear did not even penetrate to the flopper, way too easy to shake out. Ham fisted, slippery scramble to get my hands in his gills before he woke up. Did not even realize how big he was till I was on the way up. Pics exist, but will be a while. Speaking of fish size, there were doggies down there that could have swallowed the two we shot. We hunted around for some hogs to take home with us, but they had all gotten the message. Where there had been lots a few days before, we did not even see one. Oh well, snapper eats good too and Karen will appreciate some filets in the freezer.

From there, uneventful. Snotty 120 mile trip back to the Bimini area, more conch, easy passage back to Ft Lauderdale, arriving mid day July 22.

Word of caution to aspiring Bahama cruisers, make sure you have not only a good set of spares, but the right tools to use them. I goofed and left a set of SAE open end wrenches in the truck in Lauderdale, something I needed desperately to change a slowly weakening water pump. Neither sockets, crescents, slip joints, nor vise-grips worked worth a hoot. Running out of ideas but got lucky when my metric open ends had just the right size.

One very odd thing. no sargassum. I mean none, zero, not so much as a speck in the Gulf Stream, coming or going. Saw a couple of very small pieces near Hole in the Wall, but that was all. What gives?? Is this related to the bad fishing in the Keys earlier this year?

I’m a little concerned about eating those snapper. Anybody know anything about dog snapper and ciguatera?

Needless to say, a great time was had by all.

[Bushwacker]

Conner,

Great narrative of another awesome adventure! Can't wait to see the pics and videos! Maybe even the skeptics of the Seafari 25's amazing ride in a rough chop will be convinced once they see the drone video! Denny

[gofastsandman]

Amazing.
I have much to learn.

[BA17]

Damn I'm jealous.

[DonV]

Originally Posted by BA17

Damn I'm jealous.

Me too!!!!!

[Fr. Frank]

Originally Posted by BA17

Damn I'm jealous.

Yeah. Me, too. Officially.

I remember the Berry's from 45 years ago, let alone 25 years.
The times, they are a changin'.

[cdavisdb]

Ahh, the Berrys! Such a fabulous place. Would love to have been there 45 years back. Its still pretty nice, coves, beaches, and islands haven't changed much, but the fish are slim, coral has been hammered, etc Lunch is available, but you have to work at it now.

I did one very good trip to the Berrys in a 20 seafari, with a pregnant and very accomodating wife, back when the coral and fish were still good and drug smugglers were the only company around.

[kmoose]

Amazing My friend! i have a big trip coming up next month and your adventure has me ictching to go. Can't wait to see your pics and video.

[ericallen01]

Great stories !

Here is a great app for controlling drones by visual recognition -

http://vertical.ai/studio/