San Salvador Island
January 12 – January 20
I’ve chosen to write my trip report in a daily log format instead of as a story.
Word of warning…it is lengthy but serves as a decent overview of our trip.
Day 1
Friday
Jan 12, 2007
This is what we had been waiting for. A dive trip with one of my sons and his girlfriend. He even gets 3 hours College credit for this, where were these kind of classes when I was in college? The university he goes to has an inter term program in January each year. It is a two week class either on campus or many of the kids choose to travel abroad. One class that is offered almost every year is a dive trip. This is my son’s third dive trip. He has been to Grand Cayman and Belize now off to the Bahamas
Up by 6Am and getting all of our baggage together for final weighing to head t the airport. We are Flying Delta from KC to Atlanta and on to Nassau then Bahamas Air from Nassau to San Salvador Island. Delta allows 2 bags but no more than 50 lbs each and Bahamas Air only 1 bag but up to 70 lbs. Our decision is 1 bag under 50 lbs with a very heavy carry on bag. Both our bags weigh in at 48lbs (all equipment is dry..this is important for later). KC is having a winter storm (it’s spitting ice and 17 degrees) yippee!!! We leave early to get to the airport on time. A 45 minute trip took us 1:15 today. Sent wife and other son off to travel back home before it gets too bad out there.
All goes smoothly with check in and sure enough the bags weigh 48 lbs. We are off to the gate. Storm is still going so all planes get de-iced…uh oh..our layover in Atlanta isn’t very long..there may be some trouble here. Little did we know just how much.
We got de-iced and waited to take off. Our turn came and we have lift off. Just about the time that the wheels are due to be retracted we heard a loud bang from the right side. Sounded like stuck wheels that had broken free of the ice. Shortly after the Captain came on the speaker and said something about a faulty thruster and we headed back to KCI to have the plane worked on. Oh well there went any shot at us making it to Nassau tonight…but would rather be safe than sorry.
Delta was very nice and one of the stewardesses was giving everyone instructions about going back to the ticket counter to reschedule their flights but called for our group (22 of us) to wait at the gate as they were already hooking us up.
They booked us out on the 6:30 flight to Atlanta and told us that they had made arrangements for us in Atlanta for the night. We were to be on the early flight to Nassau and would only loose about half of a day in San Salvador but would with any luck get out of Kansas City and the ice storm. We watched the snow plows intently as they made a final pass at the runways and then we were airborne. No loud or strange noises so we were all good and made it to Atlanta safe and sound. Had a few issues in Atlanta as they had not set up our rooms as promised and since we were flying internationally we were unable to access our luggage for the night. All got worked out and we finally checked in about midnight.
Day 2
Saturday
January 13
We start the day in Atlanta with an early wake up after a very short night.
Off to the airport and then to Nassau. At the airport we check in and found our flight to be out of terminal A, by the time we get thru security the flight has moved to terminal B at one of the gates at the far end of the concourse..thats ok we have time and it’s a nice stroll. Get to the gate and this flight is scheduled for Boston…..NOOOOOO wrong way! Check with the gate agent and we have been moved yet again to another gate.
No problems with flight everything on time and weather good…off to Nassau.
We have a several hour wait in Nassau so what do college students (and some dads) do but head to the duty free liquor store. They sell beer by the bottle. Kalik is the beer of the Bahamas and comes in three different strengths….light ( blue label and my favorite), premium and extra strength…7%. Some of us decide to try the triple play and end up with one of each. That helped to kill the time between flights.
Next flight is a prop plane to San Salvador Island. This was the nicest flight of the trip out, smoothest take off and landing and got to see some of the other islands on our flight.
Land at San Salvador airport, very nice but the airport is a small 2 or 3 room building.
Riding Rock Inn staff there to greet us and collect our bags. They load us in a couple of vans and we are ready for the final leg of our journey to our home for the week. It literally took our group longer to pick where they wanted to sit on the van than it did to get to Riding Rock Inn as it is just past the end of the runway. The rooms were of adequate size. Clean but older and could use some work….(found out later that they are planning a major upgrade to the facility, good for them this is a nice place to stay).
Got checked in and had dinner…..fresh grouper….man its good to be in the islands great dinner then off to the dive orientation and paperwork part. I’m beat so will be early to bed tonight.
Day 3
Sunday
January 14
Dive Dive Dive
Three dives today all close to the marina so the boat rides are 5-15 minutes.
Found out that almost all of the dives are wall dives here with some nice coral at the edge of the walls and pockets of coral and big sponges towards shore. Most dives are close to shore and start in about 40 feet of water.
While waiting on the veranda for breakfast our group spots a reef shark out getting his own breakfast at Riding Rock…..note to self no early morning swimming on this beach!
First dive of the day was “Sand Castles” My first wall dive.
We moor in a sandy patch and head over the edge of the wall. Nice large sponges but not a lot of fish life on this dive. Monitoring my air level and spot my depth guage..95’ my deepest dive to date woo hoo but I am sure that I will dive deeper as this is the first dive.
I realize on this dive I am big and a bit out of shape….suck down some serious air and only lasted 25 minutes on 3000lbs of air. I also know this was my first dive in a year so I will get better and less nervous as I continue to get wet!
We take a long surface interval and go off to our second dive….”Riding Rock Wall”
This dive has a lot more wildlife….we go down to about 75 feet on the wall.
Some of the things we saw were 2 lionfish…yes they are supposed to be a fish of the Pacific but they are appearing in Bahamas waters. Also saw a couple of large puffers, some hermit crabs and a decent sized spotted eel. The best sighting I had of the day came when we swam around a large coral head and came face to face with a 5’ barracuda…he just floated about 3’ in front of us checking us out and stayed around a while to say Hi.
Lunch
Dive three of the day…Vicky’s Reef
This reef got its name form a lady that lost her watch on a dive here and later in the week found it again..
Dove the wall and I went to about 80’. I am starting to see some of the smaller creatures along the wall. Saw arrow crabs and a brittle star tucked it around the wall…..seems specialty of the day is lionfish again two more seen on this site, one was a new discovery by the dive master. Saw a large grouper that would look real nice on a grill. Have found that I am pretty tired this afternoon….may not be doing much afternoon diving.
Dinner
Hung out with the others in the driftwood bar for a while then went to bed by 9 again….know this means an early morning.
Day 4
Monday
January 15
Yup, knew it…early to bed and early to rise….in bed by 9 and up by 5…damn!!
I am sitting on the veranda….by myself (nice) listening to the waves break below(nicer).
While I journal I have become main course for some of the island insects (not so nice) the no see ums and mosquitoes are having a feast and my ankles are the freaking main course!! I am waiting for 6AM when Patrick comes down and makes coffee.
Had nice conversation with Patrick (he is our dive master) about dive sites we will go to.
Breakfast is normal American stuff and done very well ….stays the same for every day we are on island…mmmm mmm good!
First dive of the day is going to be our deepest of the week.
Dive one….The Great Cut
Lupo (our other dive master) describes the site for the experienced divers of the group..doh, I’m part of the experienced group. Honestly not too sure I want to do this dive….It starts at about 50’…swim down the wall to almost 90’ there is a swim thru with another below that one….it drops to an exit that is between 120’ and 140’ . Dive master will go down the hole first and we will follow he will direct us to rise higher and complete the dive in 50-70’ of water. My son really wants to do this dive and wants me to go with him…me, why me? What have I done to you??
I decide to go along to the 90’ level …once there I notice the others dropping thru a hole and disappearing back under the rock….oh crap….this one doubles back under it’s self ( so much for listening to the dive breifing) If I don’t drop into that hole I will miss out….ok I decide that I will stay as calm as possible and do the swim thru. I check my gauges and have plenty of air so down I go….I come out of the mouth and it is beautiful….beyond belief…there is a white sand bottom and then you look off into the deep….I start ascending and then look at my gauges….you have to be kidding me, 135’ Wow….I worked my way back to much shallower water….50’ and hung out till my air said time to make my safety stop. I hung out at 15’ for a full 5 min….had the air and might as well. This and the first dive were the shortest dives of the week. In 25 min I was back on the boat with a huge smile and a feeling of accomplishment…I broke the 100’ barrier…heck smashed it at 135', woo hoo I did it!!!
Needles to say our time topside was again significant.
Dive two…Shangrala
This one our max depth is 70’ For this dive I decided I really don’t want to go that deep so I buddy with another dad that uses air like I do. Our kids become dive buddies for this dive and to be honest probably had a better time not having to look for dad all the time.
We hang out between 40 and 50’ below the boat looking at the coral and sponges. Highlights were a couple of large Nassau Grouper and a queen trigger fish. Dive partner is having issues with his mask leaking thru the purge valve in the mask. Watching him continuously clear his mask and know I’d be getting frustrated so I signal to see if he is ready to cut dive short….he signals back is ready to move to safety stop and back on boat.
Lunch
Fried Conch…a lot like calamari. Very very good!!
Decide that I don’t want to dive afternoon but want to explore the island, son and girlfriend choose to join me. We walked to the main town on the island Cockburn Town.
Visited an old very damaged pier. This is one of many places that the locals must go to crack conch…there are conch shells all over the area. We wealked into town and visited the little grocery store and then on down to the city beach.
I like to pick up pieces of sea glass that have been ruffed up pretty well by the sand and sea. Usually only find but a few small pieces or bigger ones that aren’t ruffed up yet. This beach was covered in sea glass.
I found clear (old coke bottles) bright green (Heineken bottles) some olive (Vitamalt bottles) and even a piece of blue glass. While walking we found a float for a ship and an old broken down fiberglass dingy….a little further down the beach a large pile of nails in what looked to be a bonfire pit…would guess that was another wooden dingy that someone had used for kindling. There was also the block for an old marine motor…way too large for a dingy. We continued to walk the beach and while looking thru all the glass for the pieces I wanted noticed a small metal object that looked like a rubber stamp of a boat. What I found was a very weathered lower half of a zippo style lighter. It was engraved with USS Maury and a picture of the ship on one side and USS Maury and what looks to be Arabic script on the back. Once home I researched the ship… The USS Maury DD-401 was built in San Francisco and commissioned in 1938. was heavily involved in WW II in the pacific fleet as a carrier escort for the USS Enterprise and many other missions as well. This ship was only in the Atlantic for a short time when it went thru the Panama Canal and up to New York after the war to be decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1945.
For history buffs, San Salvador island was the last down range station for NASA during the Apollo missions and has had US Navy and Coast Guard as well as Air Force stationed there. This lighter could and probably did come form some ole sea dog that was stationed there some time after WW II but was still an odd and interesting find.
We walked back on the main road and a car stopped and asked us if we wanted a ride….sure we were happy to take a ride.
Made it back for happy hour…conch fritters and rum punch….mmmmmm
Dinner and again an early evening….this pattern is now set..I go to bed early and wake early….is ok with me and makes the mosquitoes very happy in the mornings…
Day 5
Tuesday
January 16
Today is the day they do a night dive so there is an around island tour this afternoon.
Talk with son and he isn’t that motivated to dive….I tell him fine lets explore some more of the island this morning.
After breakfast 5 of us set off to visit the bay Club Med calls home….
Was about a mile and a half walk…past the airport and just past a little shopping center there was an entrance thru the fence that folks drive thru. We walked it and before our eyes was a beautiful long beach (Bonefish Bay) Club Med is on the south end and the rest is undeveloped. We walked most of the beach and towards the north end of the beach is a boat ramp cut out of the bedrock and right into the bay….with a sign that says keep ramp clean …no conch shells. Would guess this beach to be more than a mile long.
Walked back for lunch and then the island tour…
Our tour guide was a gentleman who goes by the name Snake Eyes ( he plays dominoes and got his nickname there). We loaded into his bus and headed north….
Stopped at a road side stop on the north end of the island overlooking a huge harbor (Grahams Bay)… Walked up some steps to a hill overlooking the bay and Snake Eyes told us a story of a priest that heard of an argument between Cat Island and Whatley Island about where Columbus landed. He read Columbus’s description of what he saw and determined that by description of the island (shaped like a kidney bean, lots of lakes and a harbor to the north that in 1492 could safely host all the ships in Christiandom (Europe). This priest’s wish was to be buried overlooking this harbor and once he passed his wish was granted he is buried on a hill above Grahams Harbor.
Next stop… The island light house
It sits on the north east corner of the island. This lighthouse was built in the 1830s and is one of just a few left in the western hemisphere that is not electric. This one is diesel powered and the lighthouse keeper has to re-set the pulleys every 2.5 hours to make the lights turn. We were allowed to climb to the top and then go outside on the catwalk and get a beautiful view of the island. This was my favorite tourist stop and one of the things I excitedly looked forward to seeing other than all for the incredible diving that we have done so far.
We headed south from the lighthouse and followed the road along the east (Atlantic) side of the island. Passed a point where there was no running water or electricity this outage area ran all along the Atlantic side and part of the South end of the island too. There are lots of lakes along this area and some are salt water as well. Snake Eyes said that these lakes are a prime spot for bone fishing…It seems as if most tourists visit the island to do one of a few things…Club Med to relax, or Riding Rock to fish and or dive.
Watling’s castle is on the southern end of the island. We pulled up but didn’t stay as it was getting close to time for the divers to be back for night diving. My son and I had already gone on night dives before but the new divers that were with us had not so we passed up on the opportunity because of lack of dive lights. Will re-visit Watling’s again later in the week.
Next stop was Long Bay for the Columbus memorials. There is one from the 1968 Olympics, Spain, Japan and one other but we ran out of time and I didn’t go over to view it. Long bay is recorded as where Columbus and crew left their ships and rowed up to Grahams bay from. There have been beads and some coins from 1492 discovered in a dig site close to Long Bay.
We then drove on to Cockburn Town and did a bit of shopping and then back to Riding Rock for the night dive. The prize find of this dive was an octopus that inked one of the dive masters as he was pointing it out to the other divers.
Day 6
Wednesday
January 17
I’m back to diving after taking a little break and am raring to go.
Again up before 5:30 what’s new there…It’s a rainy morning and looks as if the weather may be setting in. May have rain rest of trip and are forecasting 3-5’ waves and continuous rain for the rest of the week. This is the same storm that iced over most of Texas and went all the way to Atlanta. No worries Mon! It is still over 80 here and a whopping 15 degrees at home in Kansas City.
Dive one….”North Pole”….this is a vertical swim thru that takes you from about 60’ to over 100’ feet….not my bag man! I again pair up with one of the other dads and decide to cover the top of the wall and the surrounding reef. The reef was full of color and life…we swam up from the entrance to the swim thru as the last person went down and along the edge of the wall and then back to the sandy area to look for rays. We came up the wall and swan directly into a school of small barracuda. We didn’t find any rays but while swimming we noticed a long brown extension to the coral head about 50’ away…that looks like….could it be? It was, there snuggled in next to the coral head was about a 5’ nurse shark and we were behind it so it didn’t bolt away. A group gathered and looked at it and then I swam up alongside it ( about 5 feet away but beside it) and the shark decided it was time to find another place to hang out and with a flick of its tail was gone off into the distance. Yes I have seen many sharks but this is the first time I was the one doing the spotting.
Back on the boat while moving from one site to the other I was talking to Captain Bruce and noticed a pair of dolphins, I told Bruce to check out the dolphins….He saw what I was talking about and shut the boat down….He told us that those weren’t dolphins but they were a pair of pilot whales. He said if they were in the mood to play they would surface around the boat and we could get in the water and snorkel around them. They circled the boat and figured that we wouldn’t be much fun to play with and disappeared off into the briny deep. Bruce told us that they were fairly rare around the island but are spotted on occasion.
Dive two…..”Runway 10”
Gets its name because it is at the end of the runway for the island and that is the id for the runway. Is very close to Riding Rock’s shore line. One of the highlights of this site is a rather large Nassau Grouper (they call him Bob) that has been fed by Club Med for quite a while so it will follow the divers. Again for this dive there was a group that went deep over the wall but my dive buddy and I are liking what we see in the 40-50’ range so we hung around the top of the wall and the hard pan area around the boat. Bob decided to make our group a group of three and swam with us for probably between 10 and 20 minutes….he swam between us like he was hiding from the sharks or something..was kind of fun, turn your head and there was Bob. The reef was nice and we found the skeleton of a very large crab…was huge. Found a couple of yellow rays lying in the sand..I’ve seen turtles and sharks on this trip even spotted a couple of whales but this was my first rays of the week.. Turned out that this was also the longest dive of the week for me…just under 50 minutes..not bad went from 25 to 50 minutes in just a few days….and no this wasn’t that deep of a dive but we were around 50’ for most of the dive.
Dive three……”Telephone poles”
The site is called this because they look for the poles from the boat while along Long Bay. This is the bay that Columbus anchored his ships in upon discovery of the island. There is a bronze monument in about 35’ of water. We swam to it and only saw stingrays and some sand dollars along the way. We went thru a large swim thru that takes you from about 30’ to 70’ then swam on top of the reef again. This site had lots of grouper.
Day 7
Thursday
January 18
Same old story..up early. The sky is clear but cant see the surf. Is supposed to be a bit high today but cant yet tell.
Sun comes out and is beautiful day…waves are not that high so we head out to dive.
Dive 1 “Orbits Canyon”
Did the Old guys dive again. The three of us stayed between 40 and 60 feet deep and swam the top of the wall while the others went down to about 120 feet. There were lots of fish and again spotted a nurse shark. I like diving at this depth as I use less air and there is more to see. Lots of fish on this dive but the visibility was not as good as on other dives.
Dive 2 “Stew Pot”
This dive is close to the main town on the island, Cockburn town. This was one of the most unique sites of the week as
- We anchored instead of tying off at a buoy.
- Lots of sand and barrel spounges.
- The top of the wall was closer to the surface @ 30 feet than any other dive.
The sandy area under the boat was 50-60 feet deep and the wall rose above it. Buddied up wit my son again, he was doing a fish identification certification so he was looking for odd shaped bottom dwelling fish and shiny fish too. The shiny fish were easy to find. The odd shaped ones we didn’t find all of on this dive.
Swimming on the top of the wall reminded me of snorkeling because it was much more shallow than any other dive we had done. The fish were smaller but was fun to dive again with my son.
Afternoon activity;
There was a group of 5 of us that decided instead of diving this afternoon we would get a tour of the Watling Castle ruins. We had scheduled to meet Snake Eyes again but he got tied up with an earlier appointment so the nice folks at Riding Rock loaned us a van and off we went. Mind you this is a bunch of Americans traveling on an island where they drive British style…..We had to drive on the left instead of right. Mad for some interesting times when turning right but otherwise we all survived…no wrecks, no one injured or particularly scared and all wildlife safe!
The trip to the ruins was a nice little drive. We found them and hiked up the hill to visit.
Was an ok trip, got to see the south and part of the east side of the island and am glad we took the drive. We made a couple of stops on the way back, the first being at Grotto Beach….it was beautiful and we were the only people on the beach. We also stopped to visit the woodcarver at Sugarloaf town. The girls all ordered turtles and he carved them fro wild tamerin wood and brought them to Riding Rock once he finished them. We were going to tell him where we were staying and he stopped us, told us “the whole island knows who you are and where you are staying” . Was nice to be on an island so small that everyone knows who you are. We then stopped in town and then returned to Riding Rock.
Day 8
Friday
January 19th
Last full day on island and yes….was up early just like every other day.
Dive 1 Double Caves
We could see two caves from shore. This dive son and I again stayed in the 50-70 feet range looking for the rest of his bottom dwelling creatures. The wall was agin over a coral mound and most went over the wall. We found his creatures and enjoyed our dive….the coral had two cuts that led to the wall. We followed one looking for his mystery creatures and swam quite a ways. Water was very clear and could see well today.
Dive 2 Baker Salt Mine
This was the most incredible dive of the week. This site had just been marked the day before by the Club Med dive crew so this was the first time that the Riding Rock staff had been on the site.
We hit the water and went as two groups for this dive. No wandering like we had ben doing but this was a guided dive. It was incredible. The reef was beautiful with towering spires of coral. We dove at about 60 feet for most of the dive and you could see easily another 60+ feet below to the sand. The sight looked like it would be perfect for a movie set. Truly magnificent. Patrick and Lupo said they want to come back to this site to explore it more. Everyone was absolutely astounded by the pristine beauty of this site.
We then went further to the south east end of the island to an area of protected shallows to look for conch for out picnic. The view here was incredible…the island, shallow water and small island the protected the area. Our group found several conch and Bruce got the animals out of their shells, and proceeded to slice and dice fresh conch while Patrick prepared the other part of the salad with peppers apple onion and who knows what else.
There were sandwiches and fruit too. Nice picnic on board the boat.
What a great way to finish our week with Patrick, Lupo and Bruce.
We headed back for the dock and a few of the kids tried burfing….the boat stopped they threw out two ropes and two brave souls would slide off the back of the boat on their belly as Bruce gave the boat gas and pulled them along behind the boat while they body surfed on their bellies until they drank enough water that it was time to let go… The kids had a blast doing it and it was fun to watch.
Got back and cleaned up our gear…then headed to dinner. The folks at Riding Rock baked a cake to celebrate all the newly certified students. The evening was great.
Headed back to our room to pack everything but the wet dive equipment. And then off to bed.
Day 9
Saturday
January 20
Travel day…yuck
Watching the morning weather it is cold and snowing in Kansas City…welcome home.
We finish packing and head off for the airport. Check in and hang out for a couple of hours. Patrick takes a few of us out for a morning drink… and we return to check in. Once past security we sit in an open air waiting area. Board prop pane and are again off to Nassau. We have a five hour wait in Nassau. When checking our bags we weigh them and with the same stuff they are 4 lbs heavier so son and I off load our BCDs and breathing apparatus into a dive bag and ship it as a separate piece of luggage.
You clear US customs in Nassau so once in Atlanta things move much faster. Patrick is going back to Miami and has a long layover to so we grab something to eat and talk with him about how the week went and his thoughts on life. We said our good byes to Patrick and boarded for Atlanta All went well and we had enough time in Atlanta to pick up some food.. American style. Wasn’t near as good as what we had been eating all week but we were back in the states and everyone had a phone glued to their ear updating family and getting weather updates. Made KC just fine and it was snowing. Said goodbyes again to the group we dove with all week and headed home. Heads hit the pillows around 1Am and or vacation had come to a close with a rude and freezing return home.
Would we do it again? I think everyone would certainly say of course we would!!
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