Waiting for weather in Nassau, Bahamas

---

Mantis Shrimp with eggs

David Sanchez had found a mantis shrimp with eggs and shared with Steve the day before. Steve took me to it today but the mantis was very shy in the hole. I moved on and run into Diane who showed me a different color garden eel. I spent some time with them. There was one red one within the yellow ones. Diane told me later that it was not mating colors that it could be a different species. I saw 2 with holes very close to each other and I saw them touching faces. My photo is not so good but I got proof of life. As I got close the smaller one went into the hole and never went out again..and I didn’t feel like waiting for it to go back out. I went back to check on the mantis. I tried to video it shaking its eggs. That was pretty cool to see. The water was very dirty and I only liked one of my shots. I probably will go back the next day to find it again. I found a very small red scallop with blue eyes real cool. I also saw a crab eating a smaller crab and yanking the little legs out of its body while it was still alive.

Log 666





BEOTHUK



12 07 2013 Waiting for weather in Nassau, Bahamas.

Well. It has been a while since I don’t write a post and it’s going to take me a little while to catch up. To make a long story short a couple of months ago I was out of cash running my own Photography business and I called one of my old captains. I worked for him in the past in an awesome trip to Greece and Turkey on a boat that is still in a very special place in my heart: Commercial Break. If you scroll back on my blogs to 2008 you will find more about that trip. Anyway he was running a very similar boat that I will call “B” from now on. He needed help to get the boat ready to go to the Caribbean and luckily he kept me busy for a few weeks. The chef of the boat was a little burnt from a long-never ending trip and since I love cooking, I offered to take over. One thing led to another and a little bit later I was taking a chef position. I am now in a Three-month trial period and still I haven’t cooked for the owner yet just the crew. Anyway. Since I have been on the boat, we finished the yard period, updated all the TV screens to HD, re-doe the entire decoration of the interior by a Design Architech from New York, completely refitted the hydrolic passarale and all the hydrolic systems, purchased a new dive/chase tender, repainted the small tender and I can’t start to name all the other projects. The boat was scheduled to leave to St. Thomas on Nov 4th but the trip was cancelled and sadly the boat was put out for sale. We changed from cruising mode to selling mode. We had a broker on board and his photographer. I had to admit I had a lot of fun setting up the entire Broker Photography Operation. During those days the father of the owner passed away from a heart attack and they were sad times for all of us. The good news is right after we finished the photoshoot we got orders to take the boat to the Caribbean and wait for further instructions. In less than 2 hours I re-provisioned for the crossing while the boys got everything ready for taking fuel and off we went to Fisher Island to tie to the fuel barge. After taking $19000 worth of fuel we were heading East and I saw Downtown Miami getting smaller and smaller. Destination unkown. I was so happy to be back at sea I didn’t think about where we were heading I guess none of us did. The day before we were selling the boat and next day we were heading somewhere. Yippi. My capt just drew a line on the gps heading East with no point on the other side. It felt so good for all of us. Once across the gulfstream, we had information of turning weather so we had to look for shelter. We arrived at Atlantis in Paradise Island in New Providence on December 4, 2013 after 12 hrs cruising at anbout 11 knots. Atlantis is a very fancy marina that yachts owners love to go to. Dockage is $7 a foot and it comes with restaurants and plenty of things to do. The next day we moved across the bay to Bay Street marina where dockage is $2 a ft, it is low key and to me more pleasurable because I can really taste the Bahamian culture. Owner onboard or not we still have long days of work and I havent’ really had time to land myself, everything is been such a rush with no sleep. Finally this morning I woke up for an early run. I grabbed a touristic map to use as a guide and quickly discovered that I was 10 min run from downtown Nassau along the water. I could see the lighthouse and the cruiship docks were full of restaurants, bars and stores. They were close in the am but it could be a very interesting place to go take photos later on in the afternoon or sunset. I continued my run and circled back because I wanted to head back to a place in the map that said fish market. It was passed our marina under the next bridge over. Not the one that takes you to Paradise Island but the next one. It was awesome. On one side the fishing boats pulling up and on the other side the little shack selling fresh fish and fresch conch. At the end there was the market and all the ladies selling vegetables and fruit. Inmediately I snapped a few photos with my phone. Remember I was exercising not taking a photo walk and headed back to the boat for cash and I went back and got 2 conch salads that the guy cracked in front of me. And 12 fresh conchs: 3 per person. We had a “Conch Day” that I am sure everyone will remember. I got to the boat when everyone was about to wake up and we had conch salad for breakfast and I split the rest in half: I made cracked conch for the boys and grilled mine and made a bit extra of the grilled conch for them to have a taste. Rosemary roasted potatos and guess what? I forgot to take a photo lol. But it was a yum day!

---