After a quick one day stop in Abu Dhabi to see the kids we are back in one of our favorite hotels, The Four Seasons in The Maldives. We haven’t been here since Jub’s wedding, which was nearly three years ago.
I went out for a morning dive with Ali and the boys. The visibility wasn’t great with lots of suspended particles in the water, so we went looking for nurse sharks hiding under the rock ledges, and found these two with a huge napoleon wrasse sharing their refuge. The photo doesn’t really do it justice as it was nearly two meters long, which is difficult to see from the shot. It sat there happily while I wriggled and squeezed my way into the crevice to take the photo.
We spent this afternoon with my cousin Beverly and her family. It was great to see her again and they took us to a burger bar that had the following on the menu
We went looking for fossilized shark teeth on the beach in Venice this morning before driving back to Miami. My cousin Andy has a flat near here and told me one of his friends has found a whole jaw full on the beach so I expected to stub my toe on massive megladon teeth as I walked along. No such luck. It was a nice walk though.
When we got back to the boat I found myself cleaning out the crew cabin, and making the bed for the new girl who will be joining us for a week while Sid and Evelyn are here. Funny, I thought I paid people to do that for me…
So after a few days hanging around Miami, we decided to go on a road trip to Crystal River on the gulf coast. During the winter months the place is full of manatees and is high on the list of places to see for an underwater photographer. However in April, the manatees are all gone, well not entirely. There are still a few hanging around, and we did see a tiny calf with its mother, but the water was very green and very murky. In Three Sisters Springs, where the water is clearer than a swimming pool, there were no manatees, so I had to be happy with shooting trees instead.
Nikon D7000, Tokina 10-17mm at 10mm, f16, 1/60, ISO 400
So that’s it, no more Bahamas and back in the US of A. It was a really easy trip over and the customs and immigration is far easier if you come in by boat. I don’t know why all the terrorists don’t do it. No fingerprints, no photos, but the same surly customs people with loads of attitude. I checked it carefully and no where on the sign that states how they will treat you with politeness and dignity does it say that they are not allowed to give you attitude. So they do.
Here’s a last Bahamian photo
Nikon D3, 24-70mm lens at 70mm, 1/320, f6.3, ISO 200
We left the marina to find the Bimini Barge, a dive spot that was recommended to us by the boys on the dive boat yesterday, but there was no bouy to tie onto so we went back to the Sapona where we dived yesterday. The water was much clearer and Willo and I had a long lazy dive at high water, feeding the fish with bread and shooting the inside of the wreck.
Nikon D7000, 10-17mm at 10mm, 1/50, 11, ISO 200
We motored onto Gun Cay where we anchored for the night. There is a small bay called Honeymoon Bay which is famous for it’s tame stingrays, so we took some conch as bait and all the snorkeling gear. They certainly were tame, swimming right up to us and curling round our legs looking to be fed. They felt very smooth and gentle and at no point were Ildi or I bothered, although Leeann was a little freaked out at first as they seemed to enjoy climbing all over her; probably as she had the food. It was a great way to spend our last day in The Bahamas and tomorrow all being well we will cross the straight to Miami.
The wind is slowly dying down so this afternoon Leeann and I went with the local dive boat to the Sapona Wreck just south of the marina. The visibility wasn’t the best but it was a very fishy wreck with huge schools of yellow snappers all over it. Inside were pillars reaching up to the roof structure that was above the water, as the wreck lies in about 5m so a lot of it is above the water level.
It was a perfect sailing day, wind on the aft quarter and a steady 8.5 to 9 knots all the way down to Bimini. Arriving here the wind is blowing quite hard and the sky is overcast with a couple of rain showers producing rainbows. We have been told it has been like this for a few days but hopefully it will clear up as although it is a tiny place, it looks like it will be very beautiful in the sunshine. This is the big game fishing capital of the Atlantic, and being a scant 50 miles from the Florida coast, many boats come across from the States to fish the drop off for marlin and mahi mahi, as well as the shallows for bone fish.
The average depth under the keel was around two meters for most of the seven hour trip across to Grand Bahama. We even left a couple of small furrows on the sea bed as we got close to the end of the trip, but not to worry as the keel needs repainting anyway.
