Nassau, Bahamas

[Shooter]

Cashed in on an email travel deal. Normally, things seem to be too good, they usually are. Not this case. Email stated five days in the Bahamas, $399. Price includes round-trip air!  :o turns out the round-trip air was from Nassau to Fort Lauderdale. So I had to add that in. My wife had always wanted to go to the Bahamas, so this was a perfect opportunity for us to check it out. We stayed at the comfort in on Paradise Island which connects to the  Atlantis casino and waterpark. The hotel was nice, and clean but you couldn't always get hot water. We also rented a car so we could do some exploring on the island. That was an adventure in itself as they all drive on the wrong side of the road. It was a little difficult to overcome 30 years of driving on the right side of the road. For the less adventurous I would recommend taking the shuttle buses or taxis. Gas is $5.50 per gallon, and groceries are very expensive. We went to the local grocery store to purchase some snacks for our day adventure out on the boat.  :o for example one box of Oreo double stuffed cookies 8$ and some change. For the most part the locals are pretty friendly. They don't mob and panhandle you trying to sell you stuff like they do in Mexico. I know what it is like to be a minority now  ;D. I was at the local fishing dock with Sean, the manager of explore scuba, when a salty old dog called out conchy(konky)Joe, is that your brother? Sean is about 5'8" tall,  with long blond hair and blue eyes. Evidently, we must all look alike! :o the salty old dog asked me if I knew what "Conchy Joe"  means, I said no. He said if you were in the state's it would mean "Honky"  ;D. he did say he was saying it in a "nice" way! I was not offended at all, was rather amused by this situation, and decided if I ever owned a boat in the Bahamas, I knew what I was going to name it >. rotflmao
the diving was awesome! By their standards it was marginal to poor as we had just gotten a lot of rain and some storms had mixed things up, causing poor visibility of 50 to 80 feet : the first day I dove four tanks with one of the dives being a wall dive which was awesome! The second day I cashed in my winning two tank dive trip, and dove the blue hole and another shallow wreck and reef dive. The connection made with explore scuba dive shop was the highlight of the trip. I need to speak with the rest of the honey badger dive team, but would like to make them an honorary member. They have our same mentality and share our over-the-top passion about diving. We dove the same sites that Stewart's Cove frequents, but we were on a small boat and were the only two divers! I have never been on one of the big cattle boats, but I don't suspect I would like it very much. Explore scuba allowed us to dive if how we want, when we want, where we want, and how much we want. 2 thumbs way up for this class dive operation

photos and videos compliments of mrs shooter with her new camera and housing!

[jasondbaker]

Sounds like fun! I've always found great diving in the Bahamas over the years. Some of the remote sites I've visited in the northern Bahamas are on my top-10 list.

[DetectorGuy]

nice pictures and video. I checked out some of your wifes other videos on youtube also... Very cool! what kind of camera was she using? That wall looked cool.

[freedivernd]

Very nice.  Looking forward to a trip there someday!

[Shooter]

canon powershot


We did alot of freediving there, couldn't quite get the hawaiin sling down in the short time, missed at least a 30lb black grouper  :-[

[Shooter]

I made some good contacts when I was there the first time. One of them contacted me about "helping" him with a sign project. I packed my dive gear and headed down there at the end of Aug. I stayed on the "whata life". It is a Italian type 2 bedroom boat. It was docked next to the Caribbean Dancer and by the cruise ship docks. I felt right at home with the zodiac style boat my host gave me to use to shuttle back and forth to Paradise Island. I also was able to go out and explore and do alot of freediving. I didn't use any tanks as I was spearing most of the time, and Bahamian law doesnt allow spearing with tanks or guns. I used a sling and pole spear. I found the pole spear to work the best and was able to harvest 3 lobsters and a couple grouper. Looking forward to getting back down there sometime and blowing the shipwreck challenge out of the water!  >  ;D

I have a few diving vids I will try to upload later.....

[DetectorGuy]

Improvise, Adapt and overcome! I like the use of the tanks and dive weights to hold the sailcloth down. I almost lost a mouthfull of coffee when I read the part about "Bahamian law doesnt allow spearing with tanks or guns"...  > I know what a stickler you are about following the letter of the law. Keep up the good work on keeping those doors open down there... the possibilities are endless.

[freedivernd]

I'll have to be doing that to our sails in 3 or 4 years and I'm curious what did they use for the lettering?  Looks like it was easy enough...

[Shooter]

The amount of research to get to that point was the hard part. We used sail patch material, I have some material left. That stuff is awesome!

[freedivernd]

Thanks for that.. Looks like good material.  I've placed it in my bookmarks.