The last 2 weeks have been a slur of activities, and it has been awesome. The Georgetown cruising regatta started on the 6th and there was tons to do with that going on. Kari came down the 26th and I hitchhiked out to meet her at the airport. Sitting there waiting for her I talked with some of the taxi drivers and watched them playy dominoes. They play while waiting for planes/customers arrive at a little table by the lot where they park their cars and they go around the table so fast you can hardly catch what is going on. They slam the dominoes on the table for absolutely no reason and chit chat in their hardly discernable bahaman accents the whole time. It is quite a spectacle to behold, especially since it goes on all day every day.
Diving has been going well lately, I have decided that every guy should learn how to spearfish some time in his life, it is quite satisfying to know that you can go out at any time and spear a freakin fish for dinner. I have been getting a lot of fish when I go out, except one day the fish were all in hiding or something and nobody on our boat had hit a thing. I was desperate to get a fish and I spotted a big trigger fish, which are edible, but they are big beautiful fish, it was all black with bright blue accents, and I approached it with my spear cocked ready to fire when I decided it was just too dang pretty and I would let it go, and then when I surfaced, Gottalife's dinghy was coming right past me, so if I hit the thing I would have come up to the girls screaming in terror at the huge beautiful fish hanging on my spear... good thing I didnt get it. I ended up with a lil grunt that day, the only catch of any of the 5 guys in our dinghy. One of the guys was Charlie off a 40 foot catana catamaran "Kaya". He was a silver medalist in the 2004 olympics and is a pretty awesome dude, he actually left Mark in charge of his boat while he flew home for a couple weeks to sail in a race, and man is it a gorgeous boat, if anyone is planning on dropping a million on a yacht, the catana is a pretty good option.
Nassau grouper season started on March 1st, which was a pretty big deal, cause you would see huge nassaus before and they would just sit there and look at you, they are so cocky that you can literally whack them with your spear and they just twitch a little bit and grunt, which I am convinced is just them laughing because you couldnt shot them. But now... we can spear the dang things. We went out at 7 am on the 1st to get an early start on the season, Kari's second day in the Bahamas, she wasnt thrilled to be dragged out to jump in the water that early, but she did it with a smile on her face with romise of good fish for dinner. And nothing. I have not had a day that I came back with nothing for a long time, not even a freakin grunt. Nothing. And with Kari on the boat it was that much more embarassing. After that frustrating morning, Mark and I went out to out secret dive spot to try to get us some dinner. I got a superb shot on a really nice sized snapper, must have been a 15 foot shot and I had to chase the sucker around, he was big enough he took off with my spear through his side and led me on a chase for a while, but I got him. Still desperate to get one of those Nassaus, Mark and I stuck around for a while and he pointed out a hole where he saw one hiding. I came over the ridge above the hole and just before the grouper made his escape I nailed him right behind the gills dead center, knocked him out cold. I also speared a huuuuge margate that day, fought with it for a couple minutes on my spear, he got off, I chased him through a cave, got all bloodied up and stung by fire coral, speared it again in the cave, he got off again, and then dissapeared forever. I still think of that fish every day. The one that got away.
Ah well we are heading back to sea son, I am at Black Point on my way up the Exumas Chain and we are heading in for bread and internet, you know, the essentials, we will probably be exploring the exumas and the Abacos for about a month and then we will be back in the states and homeward bound, I will try to get on as often as possible.
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