passed through grand bahama once. i liked the way it was half civilized. there were actually a lot of cars, and donkey carts on the roads. pretty cool. i actually like the less habited places down there more. i miss the clear water. gotta go again this winter.
Brandon, got a text from the guy that flagged us down as we were coming back in the inlet asking if we'd been to Bimini. He said to let him know anytime we go anywhere fun on skis because he wants to go, and that he's trying out for some Yamaha race team or something. I said, "yeah, only problem with that is we drove in from Texas and rented the skis." His answer was "you guys are fucking nuts"
Anyone for a swim? OK for all who thought it's crazy to ride a jet ski from Florida to the Bahamas, how about swimming from Cuba to Florida. I just got an e-mail from a friend in Key West who I hadn't heard from in a while. She was involved in this effort. Shit, if this Diana woman was going from South Beach to Bimini she would have been about a mile from land when she quit. No cage, she swam through a couple of storms. Apparently had big problems with jelly fish. I haven't really gone through the web site very closely yet but I'm sitting here shaking my head and just saying dayum, that's crazy! Oh, did I mention she's 62? That woman has a sack with some big ones in it! http://www.diananyad.com/
From Wikipedia: 1974: In June 1974, Nyad set a women's record of 8 hours, 11 minutes in the 22-mile Bay of Naples race. 1975: At age 26, Nyad made national headlines by swimming 28 miles around the island of Manhattan (New York City) in just under 8 hours (7 hours 57 minutes.) An account of her swim, published the next day, stated Nyad was "5 feet six inches tall" and weighed 128 pounds.[16] 1978: At age 28 she first attempted to swim from Havana, Cuba to Key West. Diving into the ocean at 2PM on Sunday August 13 from Ortegosa Beach (50 miles west of Havana), she swam inside a 20 X 40 foot steel shark cage for nearly 42 hours, before team doctors removed her during the 7 o'clock hour on the morning of Tuesday August 15 due to strong Westerly winds and 8-foot swells that were slamming her against the cage and pushing her off-course towards Texas. She had covered about 76 miles, but not in a straight line. 1979: In what was to be her last "competitive" swim on her 30th birthday (August 21–22, 1979), she set a world record for distance swimming (both men and women) over open water by swimming 102 miles from North Bimini Island, Bahamas, to Juno Beach, Florida (without the use of protective shark cage). Thanks to favorable winds and a following sea she averaged 3.7 miles per hour and completed the swim in 27 and one-half hours.[17]
She's still at it at 62, guess Wiki isn't always right... I just read on the web site that she has made the swim from the Bahamas to FL...
Oh yeah, Aaron went to the doctor because his hand was still sore from the trip. Turns out he has a stress fracture in his right thumb. LOL.
im at the ocean reef yacht club on grand bahama right now and one of the dive instructors was talking about this. glad to see this happened!