They always grow louder when they are about to feed on Human Flesh....

We had a blast in Waderick Wells - this trip we had great weather, the guys on Osprey and Celilo to hang with and an insider view of the happenings at Exuma Park.

The Osprey gang is good pals with the folks at the park (for good reason, Johnny helps them with projects and keeps engines humming whenever he can stop by) and had us along for the ride.  I helped with repairing one of the boats that the visiting scientists use for diving.  The bow had been torn off the 27' Carolina Skiff.  Johnny and Chris Calder (of Spindrift and Nigel's brother as it happens...) did most of the hard stuff, but it was fun learning a bit about major boat repair from guys that really know their stuff and helping out where I could.

Lex got a bit sick while we were there, she contracted a pretty nasty staph infection and the Bahamian Defence Force guys gave her a ride down to Staniel Cay in one of their fast boats to see the doctor that comes there once a month.  We were lucky that the doc was in when she was and super lucky and eternally grateful to Henry and Fred for the speedy transport.  After an intravenous antibiotic and some good painkillers, Lex is feeling much better and should be back at 100% in another day or so.

A couple of days ago, we all went diving a couple of miles offshore, well out of reach of the dinghies with the Administrator of the Park, and the Commanding Officer of the Defence Force outpost there.  What an amazing couple of dives.  The first one at Danger Reef was one of the best I have ever been on.  Apparently some years ago, a commercial dive operation placed the moorings and used to bait the sharks in with chum.  They seem to have a long memory.  As soon as we tied up at the mooring, the sharks showed up.  It was pretty comical, prepping your dive gear and looking down into 70' of water and seeing six foot sharks (5 or 6 of them!) circling the boat right below the surface!  Don't believe me? Check out the video below!  The visibility was amazing (the camera does it no justice...), I would guess 150' or so.  Tyler and I dove with Kaeo and Johnnie and Andrew gave us the tour.  It was a truly amazing dive.  There were grouper the size of go-carts and jacks as big as Liza everywhere.  The sharks were with us on and off for the whole dive which always adds some excitement.  We swam through pillars of coral 20 feet high and loaded with fish.  It was amazing.

We all jumped in at a second site for a short dive in around 45' @ Parrot-fish Reef and again saw amazing life, including a few more sharks.  What a day.  Andrew, who used to be a dive instructor before he was a park administrator, asked, "How many dives has Tyler been on?  He's quite confident for a kid."  I think this was official dive number 3...  The bar is set pretty high...  Eliza can't wait to get certified and join the ranks of the nutcases that literally, jump into "shark infested waters"!

A couple of Wendy's pictures of the kids...