Cats, Sharks, and Sunsets

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Many of you have been asking what I have been up to, well mainly working in the office of the dive company, but I just returned from a nine day trip to Cay Sal Bank in the Bahamas. Cay Sal is a small series of islands and blue holes about 20 miles northeast of Cuba and has some great diving if you are into blue holes and sharks.

I was asked to go on our support vessel to help install a new mooring for our large boat and scout for new dive sites, was it really necessary to ask?

We went to clear customs at Cat Cay. Never, never go here. I cannot be any clearer on this matter.
It is a small private island which about 50 wealth families owning homes there. There is a marina, airstrip, bar, restaurant, and a customs office. This place gives a new meaning to island time.

I would say that the locals work a total of 30 minutes all day.

We went to clear customs, no one was there.
We went to get lunch, though we were the only other patrons there, it took 45 minutes to make our sandwiches.
Want to rent a golf cart? Don’t even try, you have to be sponsored.
I guess if I get 25 people to donate a $1.00 for every lap I do around the island I will get to drive one someday.
The customs agent finally arrived and we started the process. About halfway through the agent gets up and tells us we have to leave, because she has to go book herself a flight for tomorrow, but it will only take a minute….
20 minutes later we got to finish clearing customs.

On the way over to the island, we had trouble with our prop on the skiff. While Chris worked on the problem, I went in search of drinks in the 98 degree heat. Apparently the work day was up, because there was no place to purchase anything on the island at 2:00 pm. I spoke with the harbor master and he confirmed that there would be no drink purchasing, soda, water, or otherwise until the bar opened.
“Great what time would that be,” I inquired?
“6:00 pm,” he replied.
I think he took great satisfaction in this as I stood there with parched mouth and sweat dripping from my brow. Knowing full well that I would half to leave the 10’ x 10’ office blasting with sweet air conditioned air. Needless to say Chris was unable to fix the problem, so our 15 minute trip back to the boat extended an extra 40 minutes.

Other than our all day excursion to Cat Cay, the trip was fun, and a fresh reprise from the office. Though the visibility was only about 30-40 feet, there were plenty of reef sharks, beautiful sunsets, and I received one nice tan. Until next time.

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