TAYLOR ON EARTH

Here is the last chapter to my Bahamian adventure, and what a busy day it was.

I woke up early, had breakfast, then immediately drove myself to Dive Exuma in George Town to catch my dive boat at 9:30. As I arrived I filled out my paperwork with my dive history information, threw my gear on the boat, and started setting up. (As a quick side note, as I was setting up, I realized that one of my gloves covered my watch on my bare arm for I was only wearing a rash guard instead of a full wetsuit, so I ended up only wearing one glove on my right hand keeping my left hand unprotected. Keep this in mind for a moment.) There were only about eight of us on the boat (including the driver and dive master) which allowed for the boat to be prompt on preparing and leaving.

Our first stop was Stingray Reef. It was a fairly shallow dive, I believe the deepest my depth gauge went was 42ft. Unfortunately I did not see a single sting ray, funny right? However I did see a few lobsters, plenty of lively coral and bright fish, and two lionfish. One lionfish was hiding deep in a coral head, and I wish I had a pole spear to take it out. The second however was a tiny baby that the dive master played around with gently in his hands until he freed it (ugh). It was an easy reef dive and a fun spot to explore.

The second stop was located extremely close to where my family and I had visited the day before at Chat N Chill, almost in the marina actually. The site is called Angelfish Blue Hole. As we all jumped into the water, we were met with the site of shallow sands and coral around 30ft, but as we descended, we soon discovered the mouth of the hole that would take us far deeper. A fellow diver and I stuck together and began to enter the broad-mouthed cave, swimming against the current, first easily, then putting an effort forth and really getting a quad exercise as we kicked deeper and deeper. Eventually as the cave got tighter and the current got stronger (damn Bernoulli’s Equation) we had to reach for coral to hold onto while our legs rested a bit and we didn’t breath up all our air. We continued forward by crawling with our hands, my left hand getting minor cuts continuously by sharp rock and coral and my right being totally fine in the glove. I soon discovered the dive master a few feet ahead of us swinging through the current with his pole hook and no fins, an impressive feat to observe. As the cave tightened and the rest of the group caught up, the dive master told us we were at the point of no return around 90ft and that we had to turn back around, so we did. The rest of the dive was exiting back the same way we came and decompressing around 20ft.

When the dive boat returned us to the pier we departed from, my brother-in-law picked me up by the dive shop since he rode with me on the way there. The next few hours were spent by swimming at the beach, relaxing by the pool, and having cocktails and snacks. Then as 3:00 rolled around I had my first ever massage with a Grand Isle masseuse and it was absolutely divine after a quality morning to noon dive day.

Not too much later my dad and I were tasked with going out to find food to bring back for everyone. My sister and brother-in-law joined us on this escapade across the island. We found ourselves along a beach at a local spot called the Fish Fry. It’s a collection of a few small restaurants, grills, and bars within a couple acres of land. We ordered food from a restaurant called Shirley’s and then bought additional barbecue chicken and rice from an unnamed grill which was delicious. Driving home was tough with all the aromatic food in containers sitting on laps and floorboards.

To summarize the final day in this post, my family and I simply woke up early once more, packed everything we brought with us along with additional souvenirs, and headed to the airport. Before heading into security we were sure to collect the deposit we had left for the drone when we arrived. Security and customs were fairly uneventful, a little warm in the quaint terminal with a couple gift shops. I bought a rather potent rum cake for a bite to eat. At the end of the day each group of the family returned to their destinations safely, all happy and tan (well, some of us were sunburned, but it makes for a good ending right?)

Here is a fun video I put together of the whole trip, I hope you enjoy it!