Bahamas Week At The FKA!
 

Portions of the western Bahamas may be experiencing a wind break just like parts of Florida. Perhaps the trades are freshening up in the central and SE Bahamas though. Even if the wind is light over your way all that clear water still offers other appealing activities.

In honor of the Bahamas three feature posts have been brought up to the top in Kiter Buzz. There's even a shot of an incredible sand bar in the Exumas in Still Life. Funny thing is you have MANY more spots as good as or even better throughout your hundreds of islands. Question, have you seen other sand bars like what they have off Musha Cay? What other great spots have you explored?

http://www.besthotelsresorts.com/syb...mushacay-2.jpg

Have fun over there!

Hey Rick, The sand bar your talking about is called Galiot Bank (not sure how to spell Galiot). I have never kited there, but now that i think of it, you could do some serious speed runs there in a SE wind!!!:)

sadle back cay sand bar
 

there is another sand bar off sadle back cay that is prity nice to launch off at low tide .
aj

Thanks guys. I had a good look around Musha Cay for this sand bar and largely came up empty. The image contrast is a bit funky in googleearth. Then again, the probable locations in the image suggest that these sort of bottom features may not be that uncommon in the Exumas and elsewhere in the Bahamas. As they say, just add wind. Say Chris, are you seeing any trade wind action lower down in the Bahamas? That is assuming you are back in the islands from Florida.

Hey Rick, Yea I'm back in the Exumas. We haven't had much trade wind action for the past few weeks, maybe 10 kts at the most. Had some serious weather with rain and lightning past week but its cleared up now. I hope to get some wind soon!!!!

I'm going to Long Island for few days, leave Monday and come back Friday. I will take a good look around and hopefully be able to shoot some good photos.

I'm hoping the forecast won't change.....I'm bringing my new 16m Thruster with me !!!

I'll see you guys when I come back !!!

Looking forward to checking out your photos. Only see Long Island from the air. We've been getting some healthy thermal winds late in the afternoon recently. How about over on New Providence. Hope those trades kick in down in the Exumas soon Chris.

I just got back from a 5 day trip to Long Island and once again I must say that I love the family islands. People are so friendly, you can walk around bare foot and nobody cares and the beaches are 10 times nicer than the ones here in Nassau.

Anyway, we started off our little trip by leaving Nassau on Monday morning with the usual hour of delay. Got to Stella Maris airport after 45min flight, rented a car which can cost you between 60-75 usd. Long Island is about 60 miles long and the only decent road takes you from North to almost the most southern point of the island. All other roads are mainly "durt roads" therefore you may want to rent a 4WD.

We stayed at CapeSantaMaria village (www.capesantamaria.com) which is definately the most beautiful place in Long Island. It's facing West so unless the wind is W, NW or maybe even SW riding in the bay is almost impossible. At the northen part of the resort there is a beautiful bay with waist deep water and soft sandy bottom. Unfortunalely the wind was blowing from E which means off-shore. I launched and kited for about 30min only to realize how gusty it was....so I've decided to go and look for better spots. Here is a photo of the bay:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3063634

The next day we didn't see the sun for one single second and it actually stopped raining only for few moments. This hasn't stopped us to go for a ride around the island and in about 2 hours we found ourself at the most Souther point called "Gordons" where again the beach was facing W:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3028496

On the way back we decided to make our trip a bit more adventurous so we took some "off-roads" that were leading the Eastern coast which is mainly rocky except for few bays where the reef breaks few hundred yards out.

This is one of the Bay that we have found, it's in "Pinders" settlement and has actually two bays divided by a small island called Guana Cay:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3028604

nice and flat in the inside and lots of waves breaking out at the reef.

Then we stopped at Dean's Blue Hole close to Scrub Hill settlement. The place is phenomenal, on one side you have a nice shallow bay and on the other hand this deep Blue Hole. I reckon that in right E maybe ESE wind the bay is ridable. The bottom looked pretty rocky though and landing and launching would not be a problem on this sandy beach:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3028642
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3028664

One more spot that it's worth to mention is the Bay at Lochabar in Clarence Town. This time the road was paved and there is a nice area to park and walk to the beach. The Lochabar Bay is protected by a series of Cays, it's a perfect spot for anchoring in E wind. On the right hand side there is a bigger Blue Hole that to be honest with you does scare a little bit at first. The Bay is a good mile wide and the Blue Hole covers for 1/3 of it. I had the best time here just riding in between the Cays:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3063977

There must be some other nice places to ride on the East Coast but for the big majority it's all fairly rocky, like this:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3064012

If the wind instead was blowing from S or even SE I reckon there is an infinity of ridable places on the West Coast. Starding with Thomson Bay (off Salt Pond), it's where the annual Regatta is usually held or Millers Bay, Mangrove Bush or even Gordon Beach.

Let me know if anyone is ever interested in going to Long Island, I have a map and I've signed all the dirt roads that lead to all the ridable beaches.

m

Great report, thanks for all the details! The images help too. Would love to freedive the bluehole near Schrub Hill (at slack tide!). How long would you guess it would take to drive from the north to south end of Long Island?


http://www.geocities.com/regkit/ClearBlueHole.jpg
From: http://www.geocities.com/regkit/

I've Jumped into the blue hole off that ledge before!!!!:mrgreen:

Is there much of a current in certain tide phases in these blueholes? This might be more significant to holes inland connected to the ocean. I recall reading something about whirlpools developing in some when I was a kid. Poetic license or is there something to this? One things is for sure, it would be a great place to visit.

No whirlpools that i have ever seen. Not much current in this one either because of its location on the ocean. Its pretty merky thought, hard to see. the whirlpool factor may be greater the farther you get away from the sea yes, but i am not sure. I know that there are 2 right near where I live and people dive them all the time.

The blue hole in the picture is really interesting though because it goes straight down and all you can see is black. I'd love to take a depth sounder over it and see how deep it is..;)

Thanks for the input. I think current issues are more prevalent with inland sinks connected to the ocean as you say. I have yet to make it to a marine sink strangely enough. Although there is a small, little known one in the Bimini's with an intact roof that I may get to checkout in a couple of weeks.

I did do some dives in Warm Mineral Springs in SW Florida for the Florida Division of Archives. It is a sulfur spring and a pretty bizarre dive too with skulls with brain matter, saber-cat fossils, spear throwers, stalactites and this funky fuzzy purple and green matted algae chunks that rain down.

http://www.church-of-the-holy-grail.org/springs.jpg

Just got my copy of Palmer's "Deeper Into Blue Holes" this morning. Bet he has some stories from the Bahamas. Did a quick google search and found that you can have whirlpools in some blueholes during the "siphon" part of the tidal cycle.

http://cavesurvey.com/images/White_Ring_Map_2000.jpg

Ocean blue holes alternately blow water out (spring) and suck water in (siphon) as the tides fluctuate. In some cases, the spring cycle is strong enough to form a noticeable slick or boil on the surface, giving rise to the often-used term of "boiling holes". During the siphon cycle, water is sucked back into the cave and can be dramatic enough to form a whirlpool on the surface. As the hole transitions or "turns" between springing and siphoning, or vice-versa, there is a brief slack period where there is no flow at all.

More at:
http://cavesurvey.com/white_ring_blue_hole.htm

thanks for the Info Rick, thats interesting stuff!!!

I just put an article up about the Long Island sink, Dean's Blue Hole at:

http://fksa.org/forumdisplay.php?f=92

Lots of great sights over your way. Keep it coming!

Hey Rick, tks for all the amazing information. I honestly thought it was 60-70 ft deep. We have one here in Nassau, just off Rose Island. I dived there once and I was told that was no more than 70-75 ft.

Did you find anything on the Bluehole at Lochabar, just South of Clarence Town ? It looked pretty deep too.
We found a couple of more Blueholes close to the main road but the water was too merky.

I bought one of the Chartbook on the "far Bahamas" and I've noticed at least 20 to 25 Blueholes in Long Island. Do you know what creates them ? and why so many in Long Island ?

You're welcome, thanks for passing along so much Long Island info. I was planning on heading out to the Lost Blue Hole off Rose Island but lacked sufficient time and an accurate location a couple of weeks ago. Next time. It sounds like an interesting dive, how was it?

I am sorry, I couldn't find anything dealing with the Bluehole at Lochabar. I suspect there are quite a few off Long Island as you say.

I don't know this for a fact but I suspect Long Island by far doesn't have a monopoly on blue holes. I would guess Andros by shear size might have that distinction. I would think the Bahamian Plateau has hundreds of blue holes of varying sizes.

The conventional wisdom on blue hole formation seems to involve conditions when sea levels were far lower and the carbonate rock mass comprising the Bahamas Plateau was exposed far higher above water than at present. Chemical factors ranging from acidic rain, tannins from decomposing vegetation and roots, erosion, and other weather processes attacked the rock mass through fissures and created vertical voids. Glaciation receded, sea levels rose to contemporary elevations leaving flooded cylindrical voids in the rock, blue holes. Given the mechanism of formation and abundance of carbonate rocks over the Bahamas it is no surprise that there are so many blue holes.