Offshore from Debbie Via on Vimeo.
We made this video to show you what it looks like offshore in GREAT weather! The map below shows where we were.
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While heading up the waterway just before the Haulover Bridge Canal, something caught our eye. I jumped up and grabbed the binoculars. It was indeed a pink bird. The only pink birds I know of are flamingoes. And I have never seen them in the wild, only in a zoo. So just what kind of bird was this??? Turns out they were Roseate Spoonbills!! And not just one or two that had secretly escaped from a zoo. There were lots of them on two tiny islands!! At first I thought they were flamingoes, a common Florida tourist mistake. In fact I wrote that they were flamingoes. Guess that puts me in the total Florida Tourist category. But thanks to a comment you can read below, I learned something new today!!!
Sweet and Sensational Sonya delivers this message every day on channel 16 on the VHF radio (a boater's phone) to advertise what is being served at Sampson Cay's restaurant for lunch. She is a great waitress and always has a smile!
Every time we walked on the beach we saw shoes. Never a pair of shoes leading you to believe that someone walked off and forgot them. These were lone shoes that had washed ashore....baby shoes, kid shoes, men's shoes, women's shoes....some fairly intact, some only the sole. The thing is many of them did not look like shoes anyone would have worn on the beach. These pics were taken on the same beach on Long Island and were all within 50 feet of each other. So just how do all these shoes get washed up on the beach? Do that many folks come there, take their shoes off and then forget them? Do they get blown off the decks of mega yachts traveling at high speeds? Do that many people throw their worn out shoes in the ocean instead of the trash? Did a Rack Room container full of shoes get washed off a ship? Is there some country on the other side of the Atlantic ocean that throws them into the water as an offering to the shoe Goddess? These important questions are what keep me up at night! ha ha! Still, I do wonder just how they get there. Got any ideas????
Our boating friends Tom and Cathie on Interlude said when we went to Long Island we just HAD to go to this great restaurant. The way they described it made my mouth water. Almost all the restaurants in the Bahamas serve basically the same things. Lunch = hamburger, cheeseburger, conch burger, chicken sandwich, fish fingers...usually with fries, if you are lucky you might get a side salad. Dinner is the same plus cracked conch and lobster. Dinner sides are mac and cheese or peas and rice. A few restaurants serve fish and maybe one other dish. But Chez Pierre serves Italian food, my fav! Since my parents were with us and Italian is Dad's favorite too, we just had to go there. We decided to rent a car and see Long Island that way while we were anchored in Clarence Town. Little did we realize when we saw this sign that we were in for an adventure. First we had to drive about 3 miles down this narrow dirt/coral/rocky road...but hey, at least we didn't have to worry about remembering to drive on the left. There was only room for one car anyway. Then we saw this sign, turned right and drove down another dirt road for 2 miles. That is five miles down a road that had more potholes, gullies and rocks than the dirt road leading to camp in Maine! I was starting to think we should have rented a jeep! With a view of the water, a boardwalk leading to the beach and palm trees all around, it was was quite picturesque and totally worth the drive. Pierre came out to greet us and told us to go ahead and bring Roux inside so she wouldn't have to wait in the hot car....that would never happen in the US. Pierre is the owner, host, waiter and chef. He managed to cook spectacular food while waiting on three tables at the same time. We ordered a salad that was so big the four of us shared it and all had seconds! Dad tried everything to get Pierre to tell us the secret to his salad dressing. But all he would say is you have to have really good olive oil and vinegar. It had SLICED feta cheese, not crumbled, that just melted in your mouth. Then we enjoyed four huge bowls of pasta with the most delicious sauces. It was everything Tom and Cathie said it would be. My only question is what other restaurants do they recommend!!!
...You can take a picture of your anchor and chain while standing on the boat in 10 feet of water. It also helps that the water in the Bahamas is so crystal clear. No I didn't cheat and take these pictures with my underwater camera! They were taking while standing on the boat looking over.... the STERN! Not the usual place to see you anchor!!! The current was swinging the boat around and taking it's nice sweet time. With no wind to push the beast or to even make ripples on the surface of the water, it was easy to spot the anchor at the back of the boat beside the dinghy! Blue holes are a fairly unique thing to see. They are places where the depth drops suddenly. The dramatic increase in the depth makes the water very blue. Dean’s Blue Hole is located in a town named, Dean, on Long Island. Actually town is not the right word. Dean is more like a small section on the Queen’s Highway without any stores, businesses, or even a gas station. If it weren’t for the sign, you wouldn’t even realize it was there. Its claim to fame is its blue hole, which at 663 feet, is the deepest in the entire world. The best part of this particular blue hole is that the cliff surrounding it extends for about 100 yards and protects it from the ocean. That means there is never a swell or even waves to deal with. You can come and swim almost any time except during a strong outgoing tide. Then it creates a whirlpool effect that can suck you down under the water. Three people who died here are memorialized with these statues. This picture gives you a view of what the cliff protecting the hole looks like. Notice the dramatic color change. As you can see it is only a few feet from the sand to the big drop off. The drop is so steep, you have to put on all your snorkel gear while you are sitting in the sand and then crawl or walk like a duck to the deep part. The white structure in the center is a diving platform that has several lines leading to the bottom. I am not sure how they were able to secure the lines on the bottom. Going down 663 feet with dive gear is not possible, so I have to wonder how did they do it??? Every year they hold a free diving competition here. They say it is easy to dive down because the air compresses in your lungs as you go deeper making you sink quickly. The tricky part is the fight to get back up. You have to kick hard to force yourself back up while your lungs are screaming for air. We snorkeled the area. There is about a 30 foot drop off that rings the deep hole. The fish like to swim in the shallower water as there are a few corals growing here. If you look back at the first picture, it is easy to see. The water over the 30 foot drop is a lighter color. We took that picture before we snorkeled. After this drop , it drops again straaaaight down. No way to touch the bottom here!
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