Month: March 2017

Last we left off the boys returned to the boat wahoo-less and we ended the night with sundowners as I showed them my battle wounds from falling off the coral ledge.

We spent the next day spearfishing the reefs and diving the incredible walls surrounding San Salvador- it truly is one of the most gorgeous places to dive! That night was Mike’s last night so we decided we had to stay up past 9:00pm (usual bedtime on the boat, don’t make fun, boat days are hard) and have a little fun…

On San Salvador their is a resort (which we will not be naming) that happened to be the only restaurant open on island so we headed there first.. With sticker shock of what a meal costs there we decided we were gonna milk our pricey night for all it was worth.. we sampled a little of everything on the menu and drank more than our fair share of the open bar. As the restaurant began to close, we headed to the beach bar where the party was just beginning. When we arrived we were stunned to see what looked like choreographed dances… it was like we had stepped onboard a Disney cruise.. cue the open bar please!

I quickly picked up the ridiculous dance moves and became old friends with the mostly French-only speaking guests! Adam and Mike had found their spot at the bar and were busy emptying bottles and making fun of the dance moves when the night started to come to an end.
I feel like it’s necessary to insert here that Adam and I hardly ever drink aside from a beer or a glass of wine with friends. So a night of open bar had us both on our not so best behavior.. 

As Mike and I start to leave the bar we lose Adam! A minute or so later we see him emerge from the side of a building cradling what looks to be a wooden baby… as I start to question him what it is, he proudly pronounces a wooden Buddha! Followed with,

” this is no place for a Buddha, we are going to relocate him to a place more serene, this Buddha needs a nicer home”… I give him a stare, his reply, “you want me to leave him here, with THESE people?!?”

Mike and I both are laughing and rolling our eyes as Adam smuggles our new Buddha friend out to sea in the dingy. At this point, the tide is low, the sky is moonless, pitch dark, and of course, the wind is picking up. It’s time to hightail it the 2 mile dingy ride back to the boat. No one argues over buddha’s liberation and we all jump in and dodge the reefs with what little light we can get from the stars on the way back.

I have no idea how I didn’t take a single picture from this weekend of mayhem but I do have this short video to share 🙂 ​​the last image is of Adam and Buddha on the dock ?

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(A short excerpt in my defense-Adam)
This nameless resort we went to had a couple knocks against it in my book. We got off on the wrong foot when they gouged the pocket book for a pretty simple meal, but that’s understandable. What I couldn’t make heads or tails of was that everyone at the bar was an employee. Yes, they were being paid to socialize, this seems far from genuine and makes you wonder who pays to go here? Thirdly, the attitude of the local islanders outside the resort was the worst I’ve seen in the Bahamas. If you can rob the out island Bahamians of their natural good cheer, then you really are doing something rotten. So the final straw came when I was contemplating all these calamities just outside the bar on a beautiful starry night, I glance over and see the most peaceful wooden man, deep in happy meditation… tossed unceremoniously underneath the bar and half covered in cloth. I reach over and uncover our new friend, there are staples in his head! At this point, there really wasn’t much of a choice, he deserved a better life!

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Story continues…

The boys aren’t done yet though, they drop me and our new friend, the wooden Buddha at the boat as they make their way ashore to check out what looks to be a bar on land. I change into dry clothes and settle in thankful for my warm dry bed when I hear an all too well known noise, “zzzzzzzzzz” fish on a line!! I run outside to find that the boys have left a baited hook with a fish head on the back of the boat and I’ve got a shark on.
I am not a fisher woman, aside from bluegills in the pond growing up, fishing for me is purely a spectator sport and my old excuse to get close to Adam….. “of course I want to go out fishing :)”

Clueless, I pick up the heavy pole and start reeling the shark in. I wanted to just leave it and head back to my warm bed but I knew it was Adam’s nice rod and he would be so mad if it went overboard plus the poor shark was hooked. As I reel, the shark takes off and so begins my struggle. In my pjs cursing the boys and clueless as to what the hell I’m going to do to get the shark off, my panic starts to rise and I find myself asking my new friend Buddha (who I’ve started to randomly call Phil) what the hell am I going to do. Just then I see the big gray body swim up next the boat and suddenly the hook comes free and the beast swims off into the night.. thank you shark gods and my Buddha friend Phil!!
The boys stumble back onboard a little while later and I tell them of my shark encounter, they start laughing hysterically. Apparently they had forgotten the line was in the water and were sad to miss me battling the shark in my jams!
When we went to bed that night, I thought no way in hell are we getting up early. But as the sun came up the next morning and our boat began to rock back and forth,the sound of crashing plates shook us awake. We knew the weather was going to get nasty but it wasn’t forecasted until around 10am. It was 6am and our boat was rocking nearly 40 degrees each way , everything was breaking inside and out. We had to get Mike to land for his flight and get out of this anchorage asap!

Adam and Mike hop in the dingy which is like jumping on a wild horse, it’s bucking around and rocking just as violently as the big boat. Just as I turn to go inside I see Mike come back onboard!
“Hey do you have like a medical kit or some bandages or a towel maybe” I see the panic in his eyes as I respond,

“What? Yes, wait what happened?”

“Adam cut himself pretty bad, there’s blood everywhere, the dingy is like full of blood”

As I start running on deck, “what do you mean Mike?! Where did he cut himself”

“On the dingy”

“No on his body?! Where on his body Mike?!”

“Oh his foot”

I breathe a sigh of relief, thank god it’s no where worse. I come up to see him sitting in a bloody dingy laughing. “You okay” I yell. “Ya I’ll be fine” he yells back and as he ties a towel around his foot and the two take off for land. I scurry around the boat trying to get it ready to sail and trying to stay onboard- flash backs of our stormy night come racing back to mind, And we’re still at anchor…

Adam makes it back and we pick up anchor and head into the deep where the waves are more manageable. Once we get settled I run on deck and put the sails up as Adam steers (a reverse role for us, normally I’m behind the wheel as Adam does the heavy lifting)!

Once on our course I check out this foot, cut deep on a screw apparently… as expected it’s a bad one! Definitely needs stitches. Our destination was about 8hrs away and there is no clinic on island, it’s hardly inhabited at all, so I know it’s time to step up my medical game!  Though I am a nurse they don’t teach you how to stitch in school! Lucky for me though I went to a camp one summer when I was about fourteen for aspiring medical professionals and stitched up a banana peel in one of the seminars! 🙂 

Adam being the tough guy says let’s do it and I go down to collect the stitches, lidocaine, needles and gauze, (all supplies I thought were great to have on hand but never thought I would actually be using)! In the minute or two it takes me to grab the supplies the waves takes over and my sea sickness sets in. There is nothing worse than being sea sick, its best described as feeling like your going to die at the same time worried that you won’t. Begging for dry land or death has been a constant theme in my short sailing career… when do the sea legs come- I’m still left wondering!
I set up my sterile field and suppress my nausea. I clean the area and assess where to do the lidocaine injections! (Also a first for me!) I’ve watched physicians do it plenty of times. “How hard could it be?” I think as my mind starts racing for images of the anatomy and layout of all the nerves, tendons, and ligaments in the foot. (Though I didn’t admit it at the time, I was scared. Scared of hurting Adam, scared of hitting a nerve, scared of throwing up in my sterile field..agggh)

I give three injections and life gets easier as the medicine numbs him up! He is in no pain and my confidence rises as I begin to stitch his foot closed. Harder than it looks I must say! My skills from my seminar didn’t quit stick and I end up just knotting the stitches the best I can. But the final product is a foot looking clean and back together in one piece, Job well done!!! Now to go throw up overboard

The video is a little long… but here’s the footage of our little medical procedure onboard! ​sstg-0f31a378-a034-4931-b546-c34e9e546b0e-1.mov IMG_0126

Foot stitches

So without further adew! Introducing Phil! (Aka short round) #philgoesglobal

Next post: our adventures and friends we made in Rum Cay!

We had left conception island at three in the morning to put us into San Salvador in time to meet my buddy Mike’s plane, we pulled into the now familiar anchorage, dropping the hook down just as a large commercial jet passed overhead in the midday sun. Not bad timing for dodging storms and traveling over a 120 nm to get back to this point. By the time we had the dingy lowered, Mike was just getting to the dock after hitching a ride from the airport.
Mike is one of my oldest friends, having grown up together in Chicago and both having found our way to Florida after that. The one thing that bonded us above all (at least of the stories we can tell in good company) was our addiction to all things fishing, and then Spearfishing. Somehow, we now found ourselves on a remote island that jutted up out of the great depths of the ocean to create a sport fisherman’s dream. We’d come a long way from fishing the local ponds for bluegill and largemouth bass off our bicycles in Illinois.

The weather wasn’t perfect but we immediately hit the water to check out the reefs. Mike was borrowing one of my Gatku pole spears and he practiced by missing big grouper after big grouper. I think the Indian was having a tough time adjusting to this particular arrow but that would eventually change in a big way. We retired back to the boat early, caught up on old times and got ready for the next day ahead. It was supposed to be a beauty and we had big plans.

Chasing Wahoo in the wild waters north of San Salvador

The ocean was glass and we skipped across the surface at full throttle, the 10 ft dingy was packed with gear, gas, food and bait for the day. The day is warming after an hour of running, I slow down and turn on my recently installed depth finder. As we suit up, I watch the screen for the ledge. The depth drops from 200 ft to 500 ft in an instant,

“You ready?!”

“Yea buddy!”

Mike replies as he swings his legs and fins out of the dingy into the water. The brown missile darts out! Slapping against Mike’s fins and breaking the surface.

“Holy hell!” Mike shrieks

We’re not even in the water yet and we’ve nearly have our first shark attack. The 6 ft reef shark continues to circle with menace.

Mike brings his feet in, I lower the flashers, (a string of lures attached to a buoy) to a depth of 30 ft and the shark follows. That gives us enough space to hop in and access the situation.

Immediately greeted not by one but three reef sharks, darting back and forth, excited to have visitors in their water. The eager sharks need to be poked away multiple times with the tips of our pole spears, back to back, we drift through with the current till we hit the shallower water and the sharks leave us alone.

“Well that didn’t go as planned”

I state the obvious as we hop in the dingy. I motor us a little ways away and try again, while not as aggressive as the first batch, we’re still surrounded by sharks and no wahoo on the next try.

After a couple drifts with all sharks and no wahoo I was getting a bit weary of this spot. Once again, I motor away a short distance and we hop in. Finally with no sharks in sight, I settle into the third drift. I grab some chum and let it drift off into the deep blue surrounding the flashers. Minutes pass as I breath up for a dive, I’m just about to dive when I get that feeling.

I look up to see a pair of monster wahoo cruising on the surface right towards me, my heart skips a beat and its all I can do to look away and pretend I didn’t see them. The only way to get close to these fish is to use their natural curiosity, I steal a glance and see they are getting close. With a quick prayer, I close my eyes and move as smoothly as possible to dive below the water, leveling with the wahoo, I see that they have been disturbed enough to halt their approach 15 ft away, swimming parallel. With a speargun I’d have a shot at the 80 lb wahoo, but with a pole spear he’s just out of range. As hard as it is, I swim away back towards the flashers and chum. This counterintuitive move triggers their curiosity and they’re following me now, just what I hoped. If they start feeding on the chum, we’ll get a chance. As I’m swimming towards the chum, Mike finally spots the wahoo. Not one to pass on a shot, he swims past me and right towards the wahoo. It spots Mike late and it turns broadside, giving Mike a beautiful chance. He doesn’t waste it… the Gatku pole spear powers through the slender fish, the slip tip toggles into a place and it takes off like a rocket. As it disappears the float it’s connected to whips into action and gets towed towards the distance, Mike has the line in his hand though so I hop in to chase him in the dingy. To my surprise Mike joins me in the dingy,
“Didn’t think it’d be that strong, ripped it from my hands.” Mike explains
“Well let’s hurry and get it before the sharks do!!” I reply.
It takes painful seconds to get the dingy started and the flashers in, full throttle, I race after the buoy that’s 300 yards away now. Pulling up to it, Mike jumps in,
“get it in fast!” I yell as he goes.
I quickly follow with my polespear ready for a backup shot. As I enter the water, I see Mike hauling on the line and only one reef shark in sight, we stand a chance if Mike hurries! From the depths the wahoo appears, struggling against the line. You can see it is spent and the shot is good, only a race to beat the sharks. For thrilling seconds it looks like they haven’t found the scent and Mike pulls the wahoo closer, only 60 ft down… then a second reef shark appears, and a third, fourth, fifth…. oye, only one hope now. I take a full breath, heart pounding, I dive down. If I can reach the wahoo before the sharks bite, I can scare them away. I kick hard, my heart racing is taking away my oxygen, 20 ft, 30 ft down I go, wahoo is only 20 ft away but the sharks are swarming. One goes for it, its teeth hitting home as it rips into the great wahoo’s tail, that’s all it takes. The small bite starts the feeding frenzy, the reef sharks rip into the wahoo without inhibition now, tumbling over one another for the feast. I’ve got no business in the water anymore so I head for the surface. It’s all I can do to hop in the dingy and catch the rest of the frenzy with my GoPro. We’re disappointed as the sharks finish off the last bit of the once majestic fish but no one said this was going to be easy…

we reorganize, move to another spot and keep at it, we see plenty of wahoo all day and get a couple more chances but we never connect again. The sharks keep us constant companions throughout the day making things tough, even a fleeting visit from a nine ft tiger shark, too cool!! In the midst of all this madness, with sharks all around and danger at every turn, I had a sudden onset of worry for Alyssa. Whom I had left at home with just a paddleboard to get into town. This feeling never left me all day after that.

We go home empty handed. It’s likely our only chance at the wahoo of San Salvador with the weather coming up but it’s hard to feel sorry as we race the sunset on our twelve mile trip back to our boat. It’s been an incredible day battling the monsters of the deep, one that won’t be forgotten soon. Alyssa is happy to see us home safely and greets us with sundowners to soothe our fish less arrival. I’m just as happy to see her with that nagging feeling I had… then I see the bandages! Apparently a coral wall she was walking on had given way and she’d had a good bit of a fall. With a nasty scratch on her shoulder and leg and a knock on her head to prove it. Oye, intuition had proved right but Alyssa was already nursing herself back to health in good spirits.
Read on next time to hear about adding a new crew member, a bloody departure, and a lovely sail to Rum Cay!!