More Bahamanian fun!!

Hey all,

Well it’s Saturday morning around 6am and I am in line to get tickets for this evening’s game.  It’s still first come first served and while we moved over a bit yesterday to a different section, it was also right behind the Villanova bench and they had a lot of lookie lous (loos?) that stood.  Mainly the 3 walk-ons at the end of the bench…their biggest cheering section.  Sam and Tam came down here at 4:30 yesterday and no one else showed up till 5:45.  We figured 6 would get us some more people in front of us, moving us up a bit, but when I got here at 6:10, there was only one other guy here.  Guess the game last night took the air out of the sails of the “faithful”.

Enough of that for now, let’s go back to a couple of days ago!

We dove Thursday morning for our last 2 dives.  I think we all probably would have been content with ending out diving with Wednesday’s shark dive but we booked before we came down here and who know it would be relatively sparse on the dives.  Sure we know NOW, but that doesn’t really help.

The first dive was at a site called DC3 where, you guessed it, a plane…or at least part of one, was sunk.  It was used in the movie Into the Blue with Paul Walker and Jessica Alba, a not very good hidden treasure movie with bikinis.  From there we went along the wall in that area before coming back.  Not a ton of stuff seen except for a turtle!  That was pretty cool. 

The next (and last) dive was at the Anthony Bell which was another wreck dive.  A big tugboat that was intentionally sunk to create a reef.  It doesn't have a ton of coral on it yet, but still made for an interesting dive.  That was a pretty decent dive with a cool little spotted moray, a couple of reef sharks (or maybe the same one twice) and, based off our friend Google, two Jack Crevalles.  Hey, now is a good time for pictures!

 

Turtle!

Sam stalking the turtle!

Spotted Moray

Anthony Bell (I assume that's the spelling)

Jack Crevalles  For perspective, they were about 3 feet long or so

Parrot fish

Another Lion fish (they are everywhere)

And it wouldn't be a dive day without a little
dun digga dun digga dun digga dun digga dun digga dun digga dun duh nuh na

After the diving, we hurried back to the room and took showers before heading to the game.  That game against Wake was a pretty good one…of course mainly because KU won.  They didn’t play that well, but a win is a win.  We had baseline seats 4^th row near the Wake bench.  I have heard I am now an international TV star having been seen by at least 2 people that I know.  Autograph requests will be filled on a first come, first served basis.  For Thanksgiving dinner, we did a buffet here at the Atlantis.  It was $50 a head and was okay, I guess.  Everything here is sort of expensive so we have been going out to dinner most nights (still expensive, but more variety) and making our breakfasts and lunches in the rooms.

View from our seats Thursday night.  Really cool to be able to see the players faces as they dunked and what not.  Of course, the goal post/stand blocked the left side of the court from our view but sacrifices sometimes must be made.

Yesterday was a nice lazy day.  It was overcast so couldn’t really enjoy the waterpark.  We did end up going to dinner at a pretty good Italian place in Nassau before heading to the game against Villanova.  It was….crap..L name…I keep wanting to say Luigi’s and that is not it…Luciano’s.  That’s the ticket.  I had the blue crab ravioli.  Mmmm good.

The game last night was a tough one.  I would have preferred it to come out differently (like with KU winning), but it did help expose some areas where work is needed.  For sure.  Tough game to come back from being 10 down for most of the game to up by 1 before that killer 3.  Dang.  It was sort of funny to see the ~50 Villanova fans in attendance storm the court.  Act like you have been there before, friends.  Even saw one old timer cut through the handshake line to clap one of the ‘nova players on the back.  Stay classy.

 

View from last night's seats.  Not bad.  And that is Jay Wright (Vilanova head coach) there on the left of that group.  Interesting to see his reactions to what was going on through the game.  Interesting tidbit: they apparently have a team priest...at least one was sitting with the team.  He clapped happily when Bill Self got the T.

Vilanova fans (all 50 of them who made the trip) storming the court

I guess I will try to do one more blog so we don't end up with a picture of a Vilanova victory as the last image to this trip.  UTEP is the opponent tonight.  Their coach is Tim Floyd!  Who knew.

Huh…I thought I would ramble much more than I did.  I guess there really wasn’t a whole lot to update on.  One more day in paradise before heading back tomorrow.  We go through Charlotte and Phoenix on the way back to Portland (US Air).  One cool thing is customs is done here in Nassau so the hour layover in Charlotte shouldn’t be a problem.  We only have 45 minutes or so in Phoenix, though so I am sure we will get boned by US Airways with that connection.  I hope they make me eat my words.

It is still our time, the people’s time so I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday!  Let the Christmas music begin!!!

Jim

Some shark dive video

Here is a supplemental blog with some shark video.  I have 4 videos, but it appears blogspot limits the size to less than 100MB and 2 of the vids are larger than that.  But I do have 2 that are smaller...the beginning and end.  So you don't get to see the feeding but you DO get to see all the sharks swimming around.

Beginning of the shark feed

End of the feed.  You can see most of the sharks trailing the dude with the food.

I will try to see if I can load to maybe youtube and then link over or something so you can see the video where you can see the picture wobble when the shark fin hits me in the head (with the accompanying shark coming into view).  

Our time, the People's time!

Jim

Still alive and kicking in Nassau

Hey all!

I survived the shark dive!!!  Yay!

Let’s see….when last we chatted I was heading out with the gang to check out the grounds of Atlantis.  We walked the length of the property which includes many shops, pools, water features, a casino and various places to eat.  Along the way, to fortify ourselves of course, we got some frozen fruit rum drinks that have all been classified as “daiquiris”.  I got the mango one which blended very well with the dark rum of the drink. 

We also picked up our tickets for the first game of the tournament tomorrow afternoon.  We have 4^th row under the basket so not super awesome, but pretty awesome.  The one screwy thing is that we only got vouchers for the next game.  They can be redeemed for tickets at 9am the day of the next game…so we are going to have to get in line and it’s first come first served.  Crazy way to do it.  Sam said he was going to go over around 4:30 on Friday to get in line.   There are a TON of Jayhawk fans here so it will be interesting to see what seats we can get.

We dove yesterday and did a wall dive followed by a wreck dive.  Not a lot of creatures to see beyond your typical fish.  The wreck was pretty cool to check out but otherwise, the diving was pretty underwhelming.  

More dinner!  Two for the price of one

Wreck Dive...almost Titanic action

More Wreck

Trumpet Fish

P Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney

Sponges and Coral growing on the wreck

We also hit the grocery store to stock up on food for the rest of the week.  There was also a liquor store next door where we may or may not have obtained a couple of cases of beer.  I will let you decide which way you want to go on that one.  It’s pretty weird to take a taxi to the grocery, have him sit there while you shop and then take you back.  We had enough stuff that the bellman had to bring over a luggage rack thingy to wheel it up to our rooms.  Probably the highlight of yesterday was going to dinner at the Poop Deck!  Yes, it IS named that and that is why I pretty much demanded we go there.  Poop Deck.  It never gets old!

Poooooooop

Deck

Today we did 4 dives total.  2 this morning, which were okay.  Again, not a ton of sea creatures and a storm came through so we got rained on a bit while in the boat.  Sort of funny thinking “I am getting wet!” when I am about to jump in the ocean.  Actually, the ocean felt awesome as it was warmer than the rain & air.  Like a nice warm bath. We did get to see a sting ray…and a boat load of lion fish.  We headed back to switch out some people and pick up those that wanted to go on the shark dive as well as grab some lunch.  It was a nice little interlude and then…it was time.

We headed out to the dive site where we would do the two dives.  The first started at “shark arena” but then headed out to check out the wall around the island (top is at around 45 feet….bottom at around 6500 feet).  The joke is not to try to go to the bottom.  We stayed at around 60-80 feet...but back to the dive briefing.  You get a dive briefing before pretty much any dive you ever do where they talk about the topology you will be seeing and describing the planned route, emergency signals and the like.  For this briefing they told us the sharks would be cruising around and not to be worried, but they would be there when we went in.  No big deal other than don’t hang out on the surface and splash around.  Get in the water and start your descent.  Similarly, when you are coming out of the water, get up, take your fins off and climb up the ladder without dilly-dallying around.  No need to look like a wounded seal at the surface and give the sharks any ideas.

To back up a bit, our group was at the back of the boat closest to the entry point for the dive.  With that on top of the fact that we were ready to go, I got to be first in on that dive.  Friends, hearing “the sharks will be down there swimming around” does not prepare you to step to the edge of the boat in full gear knowing with a step you will be in the water, looking down and seeing sharks in the freaking water!  But take that giant step I did and soon I was sinking down in among them.  And at that point it wasn’t that big a deal…at least most of the time.  I had my camera out snapping photo after photo as they circled around.  One even started coming towards me and I thought “hey, that will make a good photo” before then thinking “Oh crap, it’s coming right for me!!!!”.  Sophia and I both dropped down to the sandy floor and just watched as the sharks circled around us and the other divers.

Breaker breaker….”today” is now yesterday as I got sleepy last night and our internet ran out.  So verb tenses are about to shift and it might be jarring.  Now back to the dive.

The first afternoon dive, other than getting us used to having sharks circling us like…uhm…sharks…was a wall dive again.  A wall dive, for those of you new to my ramblings is just that.  Most islands have a wall where their relatively shallow waters drop off to ocean depth. You go to that wall, descend to whatever depth you are certified to go to (I can go to 100-110 feet, but usually go 80ish max) and then swim along the wall looking for interesting critters.  Eels, shrimp, fish, turtles, interesting coral, and many many more.  When anyone in your party hits half a tank, you ascend to the top of the wall and swim back the way you came.  Because you go to a shallower depth, you use less air and should get back with plenty.  Saw a pretty cool spotted moray eel, a boatload of lion fish and a relatively large grouper on that dive.  Not a bad one.

After that dive we loaded down with extra weight because for shark feeding time, we were going to be kneeling on the floor and you wanted to make sure you stayed on the floor.  Normally, if you are properly weighted, if you kneel on the floor, when you breathe in, you will start to rise a bit and as you breathe out you will sink back down (air rises).  We didn’t want that happening because you lose balance, flail arms, shark bites, not good.  The dive brief spoke about keeping your hands in front of and near your torso.  No reaching out: that shark might not do anything but the one behind that shark is thinking “Fred just got fed by that person…I am getting some too” and then your hand is gone.

Anyway, we dove down to “shark arena” and the helpers positioned us behind rocks in a circle.  I had an exposed left side with Sophia next to me.  Christine was next to her and then Sam next to Christine.  The shark feeder then came in with a metal case full of bait that he then fed to the sharks on a long rod.  It seemed like there were 100s of sharks swimming around, but they said it was more along the lines of 30-40 which is, for the most part, more than you would really want to have swimming around you hungry.  It was awesome!  They would swim around and come back in hitting you with their fins or brush against you with their tail.  I never really felt concerned…it was almost surreal to be honest maybe because I was taking pictures and filming it but still: so cool.  Definitely one that will be remembered.  You would love it, Mike!  The feeding lasted around 30 minutes and then the feeder swam off with some bait to draw the sharks away.  We then did our safety stop at 5 meters and then got back on the boat.  Super awesome tho…and to prove it, here are some pictures!  Click to embiggen!! 

Wonder what that is in the middle

Lion Fish

Brain Coral.  Pretty cool lookin', huh?

Puffer fish...unpuffed

Stingray!

Some Video of the Stingray

Pretty much what I saw when I was looking down before jumping in.  Hello.

Yep.  Sharks everywhere

Big Grouper just to add in some fluff before the shark attack!!

The guy in the middle is feeding them from the metal box.  He has chain mail on.  We do not.

Sharks everywhere

Can you count them all?

Yeah...it went on like this for a while.

Well I tried to load up a video of the sharks but it errored out :(  I will try again on the next blog.  Until then, I hope all are doing well!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jim

Welcome to the Bahamas!!

Hey all!

Bahamas!!!  That’s right, while most of you are freezing, I am forced to bear up under 80 degree weather in order to send you these blogs of joy.  This time from Nassau where we will be seeing KU play basketball at the end of the week and, while waiting, will be diving pretty much every morning.

To get here, we flew down to San Francisco, over to Philly and then down to Nassau.  The SF to Philly leg was a red eye and, as usual, I didn’t sleep well.  Sophia, due to all the flying on her sabbatical, is a silver prestige member (or whatever that is called) on Star Alliance and got those seats upgraded from economy to economy plus.  The plus does give you 6 or so inches of extra leg room but no more reclining.  Sophia then got upgraded all the way to first class so Tam and I got to sit with the peons as she lorded over it with a bottomless glass of red wine.

We all made it in yesterday, checked in and then headed out to the fish fry area where there are about 12 restaurants lined up in a row that all served, yes, fried fish of one kind or another.  I had the “lightly” breaded conch and grilled shrimp.  The light breading was actually fairly heavy but they were might good just the same.  Tam and I washed them down with a couple local beers called Sands Beer: the number one truly refreshing Bahamian Beer…at least according to their website. Early night last night since I didn’t get any sleep on the flight in.

This morning Sophia, Sam, Christine and I went diving while Tam wandered the grounds.  We went to Steel Towers (3 wrecks) and the James Bond Wrecks.  The first was pretty cool and we got to see the first couple of reef sharks swimming around along with a bunch of lion fish and even a stingray.  The second dive didn’t have a ton of life…other than a spotted moray eel, a couple of lobster and a barracuda.  Cool thing about that dive was they had the steel tube structure that made the airplane you see at the beginning of Thunderball.  It doesn’t look like a plane, anymore, but it was cool just the same

We are about to head out and wander around, but before I go, here are some pictures!  Click to embiggen.

Shark!

Lion Fish asking me "whatchu lookin' at?"

Thunderball!  007...this is the plane frame they made for that movie

Hello, dinner.  It wasn't a rock...it was a....

Liked the framing of this one.  Good colors

Spotted Moray sticking up out of the sand

You guessed it

Hope all are doing well!  Love to all.

Our time, the peoples time

Jim