*ANNOUNCEMENT 6/5/06* Photobucket Alblum has been started, a link is posted at the bottom, i picked out all the good ones and it is a work in progress. The great ones will be taged directly into the thread. Also, looking at the photo dates my story line is off, its all one big blur, either way the story telling is accurate. *end* Hello. I Just got back from the Orlando Airport maybe 2hrs ago. Our two Photographers that went with us took 3000+ pictures and over 30 videos over the 9 days. When I get the portion my dad took (around 1000 pictures) I will sort and post up and when i get Mr. Joy's Pictures (around 2000 pictures) I will double time sort and post up. Otherwise here is my log for you to read while you wait. Thursday May 25, 2006: We are to meet up at our "office" to spend the night so that no one is left behind. We watch Johny Depp and Orlando Bloom play pirets to set the mood and what not (cliche). We walk to wendys at 2 AM. Well technically that is May 26th but what ever. Friday May 26, 2006: We rise up bright and early, 6 AM to be exact. We get on a 60ft motor coach and head for the Orlando Airport. All the 13 year olds where playing Halo 2 the WHOLE freaking way there. I am going to start and anti Halo Rally because no RPG shoot 'em up multiplayer game will EVER, EVER, EVER even come close to Golden Eye. Anyway, We hop on a litle 50 passenger jet and cruise at a cool 514mph to Nassau International Airport from Orlando International. We hop on a bus and the driver smells like weed... goonna be a good trip to the boat we chartered . Oh yeah, we chargered a 65 foot twin mast sail boat called the Sundancer. Its captian is Captian Steve and the boat is over 30 years old, Steve is over 60. We head for a reefe and we snorkle, Ive seen so many reefs in the past 9 days that its all just a blurr. At the time i was able to dive a good 40ft no problem. No wind, no sailing. But since we cant use the Jib or the Mism or the Main Sail or the Stay Sail we use the De Sail... spelt Diesle. Twin I-6 9.0l Diesle engines turning some massive props. We ancor for the night not too far off of Andros Island. Andros is the largest but also one of the poorer islands in the Bahamas. Saturday May 27, 2006: We get up bright and early, eat breakfast and pull into port...well an abandoned concrete dock with a massive boat that sunk at ancor right below us. very cool snorkleing spot but we have cliff diving to do. We hike a quarter mile to a good 50ft cliff. All black coral and lime stone upheaval mind you (that is what the bahamas islands are, coral and ground upheval. Not volcanic like some morons think). After a few good jumps and some seriously cut up hands and knees we head back to the boat, load materials for PB&J's and hop on a bus that use to run Sarasoda kids to school every day. We ride to a holei n the ground that rises and falls with the tide but is freash water. Or at least the first 10 feet or so. I do a few free dives and the captian wasnt lying it is salt deep down. We get back on the bus and see something that makes me appreciate what i have even more. We go down to the beach where the spongers work. Its a hard job with little profit but there isnt much more to make money off of in Andros. The captian explains the whole process which is rather interesting. About 6 people load up into a 10' boston wailer dingy and go out to where the sponges grow. They free dive 30, 40, 50, 60+ feet and collect the black goo. Then they bring them back to shore and thow them in the sun for days to let them die then they put them in these big bamboo bins to wash the actual body parts off and just leave the spone skeleton. Then they have school children beat the sand out of the sponges then they sell them. $1-$5 is the going rate to sponge distrubutors depending on side, quality, and type. On Andros the women weave baskets to help with monies. I met one of the coolest old women in my life next toe my grandma who passed away last year. She is 95 years old and still kicking. She has never left Andros and lives in a shack smaller than the room I am typeing this in. She has no running watter or electricity and has had over 35 children. The people there are all related and most look alike. Besides that i picked up but tons of Kalik beer caps. Kalik is a beer you can only buy in the bahamas and it is EXCELENT. A step above Corona Extra with out going into rich amber maults. They also drink alot of Heiniken and Geuiness. Anyway. We get back to the boat after eating PB&J's in the local all age school and seeing a MASIVE beetle. this thing was half the size of my foot. No lie. After that we snorkled the sunken ship. It was a good place to snorklem very cool. It's amazing that they would let a boat like that just sit there in harbor. That night we where pulling out and sailing for some beaches around Andros. After my shift as the Helmsmen i went to bed. I sleep on deck becase matresses are for sissies and id rather not sleep in a bed 4ft wide with 2 other guys. One of the younger kids was sleeping next to me but didnt think about where he was laying down so he was right in the way of where the excess ancor line is pulled out for dropping the ancor. He is worken up and told to move, he straight up kicks me in the ear and my ear strats bleeding. That pretty much sucked the trip up after that for snorkleing. Before where i was free diving 50ft i couldnt push 30 because my ear was in pain from the pressure changes (equalization did jack chit). BUt i got over it and i think the quick, deep presure change put a pin hole in my eardrum and his toe just scratched the canal. Either way that night sucked. My fingers are tired, ill continue in a few hours. *Continuation* Sunday May 28, 2006: This day was nothing but beaches and sailing, beaches and sailing. Well Motering. We landed on the perfect beach for skim boarding but we had no ksim board. So we body surfed and harrassed the sea gulls. We stopped for some snorkleing and grabbed a few koncks (sp). we knocked the tops off of a few of them and found one good one for blowing like a horn. It was flipping awsome. Nothing much to say about today. It was mostly transit. fudge it, ill continue later. Monday May 29, 2006: Also alot of transit. We stopped at another beach and the spear fishing excursions commenced. The captian is a seasoned spear fisher, he dove to depths i couldnt make even if my ear wasnt botheing me and he stayed down 2+ minutes. Over the course of the trip he caught quite a few trigger fish a HUGE grouper and an even bigger snapper along with a few shiners. We stopped at a beach and this beach had another big blue hole. This big blue hold was only salt water and rose and fell with the tide and had a good 25ft cliff all the way around it. Basically a giant diving pool, 600ft to the bottom no worrys. As we got comfertable with diving and jumping feet first in the area we started seeing who could do the best jump. a few front flips and i had to one up them all. After a failed backflip attempt doing a straight belly flop, i regained my balls after yanking them out of my stomach and went for a front flip into a dive. perfect front flip and then a good 1/2 rotation, but i didnt put my hands up to brake the surface of the water in time....face plant from probably 30ft in the air . my balls came out of my stomach and shot down into my legs. I never thought doing a face plant could hurt that bad. Ive dont many going wakebaording but i geuss the more dense water (even more saline here than the ocean) with the straight down impact is what does it. Anyway. We find a pice of plywood that drifted up on shore and start using it as a skim board. Its funny becauseo nly myself and Roth (the first mate, he is about 24) know how to skim board and all the other little chilikins ate sand, and lots of it. Today we also raise our Jolly Roger for chits and giggles. Tuesday May 30, 2006: Things are starting to become a blurr on what day we did what but im pretty sure today is the day we went into Spanish Wells. Spanish Wells is the 2nd most rich community in the world only being beaten by some portions of Saudi Arabia. They got their money from everything and anything that was hot at the time. Fishing, Cocaine running, Banking, you name it they did it if it was hugely profitable. Now it is mostly fishing and boat repair. We stopped in and loaded up on Fig Bars and candy in the stores and saw something that could only be a man's dream. All the women look VERY similar (like twins similar) and they are all quite pretty and not lacking on the body side either. lmao. Anyway, not alot for poor floridians to do in spanish wells so we headed out for harbor island only after stopping at a beach. Wednesday May 31, 2006: This is the day we went to Harbor island. This is my favorite island in the bahams. It isnt to big, isnt too small, lots of right people live there on the pink beach side but the rest is down to earth bahamians. We walked around and went to the pink beach, which wasnt even pink, it was white sand with small pink specs, we saw old people tanning and went hunting for ice creme, daquri's, and beer. We walk by the school on the island and we have our high school's drum line captian with us. We see some drum sticks on the table and some bahamian kids, about 5ht-6th gradeish, in the school yard. We walk in casually and ask if any of them play the drums, one ofthe younger ones says he does and we sit down at the table. they start playing beats back and forth to see who is better, kinda like in drumline only not as gay and alot more fun. After wards out drumline captian was the winner and we are all laughing with the kids and one of the older ones goes "you fired, mon" and the one who was playing goes "you fired and you not even on the drum line" then we leave to find ice creme and beer. we find ice creme then we find beer. Josh and I have seen these blue bottle caps with two cow bells on them. We are told it is called "Kaleek." We want to try it so we pay $3 a bottle and it is EXCELENT! Better than Corona extra IMHO. Smooth goodness. Anyway, we set sail and ancor in the harbor, first time we have sailed all trip. ill continue in a few. Photobucket Alblum
