Eyes on the Horizon

To keep from getting seasick on a boat, you’re supposed to keep your eyes on the horizon. It also helps if the wind isn’t blowing and the waves aren’t a bazillion feet high! And if you don’t have to take your eyes off the horizon to get dive gear and yourself organized to jump in the water . . . well, that probably helps too!

We made it through the first couple days of “queasy dives” with minimal throwing up and now that the wind has calmed, so have our stomachs. Which makes for much more enjoyable diving!

I arrived in Nassau, Bahamas on Saturday, met up with Andrew and early Sunday morning we took a 15 minute flight over to Andros Island. We got right into the diving!

Small Hope Bay Lodge is an “all-inclusive” but is actually the furthest thing from the typical all-inclusive that I imagine when this term is used. It’s a second generation owned facility that is 50 years old, with 20 small cabins and a main dining hall/games room/reading room/lounge. There are even two friendly dogs,  Sassy and Scuba. The owner himself, Jeff, greeted us at the door and led us to our room. He and the approximately 7 dive staff know all the guests by name and the night before each guest leaves they receive a certificate of achievement in whatever their specialty -- so far there's been diving, snorkelling, bone fishing, drinking and dancing. The majority of people coming here are divers. It’s very quiet, fairly isolated, and definitely not a tourist trap. 

Having said this, they do get some “interesting” characters coming to stay. This week it’s the Russians. Four couples – well, not really “couples” as we later learned – 4 middle aged men with women who are not their wives. Three of the guys came diving with us one morning. The other guy had beer with his breakfast. The women wanted to know where the disco was. And they’ve definitely gotten their money’s worth from the bar! (Yes, they got the drinking and dancing achievement awards!)

There are lots of really good dive sites, and variety of dive sites here. We’ve done both shallow dives and our deepest dive to date. We dove a “blue hole” this morning, which took us through several crevasses and caverns – luckily we could always see light in the distance! More diving to come! 

(p.s. Photos to come too. Not sure how great the internet connection is for that sort of volume.)