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The Bahamas Trip
In the winter of 1984 being bored as usual this
time of year, I had this crazy idea of sailing to the Bahama's.
This came to me because I had purchased an old 21 foot Cuddy Cabin boat
from my friend Danny Davidson. It was a seagoing vessel... well,
sort of, as long as you didn't go too far out to sea.
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But me being me, and leaving nothing to chance
(except for a
spare outboard motor in case we got into trouble) I looked for a
sign:
Something to tell me that not only could I do it, but SHOULD I do
it.
That sign came in the Charleston newspaper: Reading one day I
spotted an
article where the President of the Bahamas son was going to the
University of Charleston. Perfect! I'll meet him, have him
over for
dinner and we'll talk about the trip. So this I did and we had a great
time. More importantly, he gave me a few tips like, bring a gun with
you and check it as soon as you arrive. He also gave me the
private name and telephone number of his father the President. He
said "if you get into any kind of trouble, just call that number. I'll
tell my father who you are". OK GREAT! Now all I have
to do is get some charts, maps, and bone-up on my seamanship. I
had been in the Merchant Marine, used to the sea, but this was going to
be completely different....
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My Main Chart. I
had several, and studied
them the winter of 1984 in preparation for the big trip.
This
was an important chart because the Gulf Stream can
run very fast, and if not careful, you may wind-up in Africa.
But the MOST important thing was this: |
This is the actual Compass that I used. When I
got home, I had it mounted on this plaque with the date.
OK, enough talk,
let's get going!
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trip down to Key Biscayne, FL was uneventful,
except pulling that boat over the mountain in Virginia where I could
actually watch the gas gauges drop (I had two) was interesting, but the
big Ford truck with 2 gas tanks had no problem. |
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Being a firefighter, I called ahead and got permission
to park my truck and trailer at one of the fire stations on Key Biscayne
OK, here we
go!
I had been told that it was a good day to cross
the Gulf Stream because the ocean was smooth as glass, and this was due
to a storm that was expected later in the evening. I was also
told that the Gulf Stream was running about 2 knots faster than I had
planned for. So on the spot, I had to change my compass heading
to account for this. AND we were told that there were so many
boats traveling back and forth that it would be like an Interstate on
water. Well, that's the only information I got that was
completely incorrect, as we never saw another boat the entire trip.
Got the old Chevy 4 cylinder "Iron
Duke" engine fired up and away we went!
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While
the ocean WAS smooth, there were HUGE
swells. We'd be on top of one,
then drop down so low that water
was all around us. Couldn't see a thing! |
We
made it! Three and a half hours later we pulled dead
center into
North-South Bimini Islands, without ever seeing another
boat. |
We're
here! We checked-in with the authority, registered my firearm,
and was warmly welcomed
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we're going to spend a week or two fishing,
snorkeling and just having fun..... except
for one big mistake I made.... |
You see, we
could have stayed at the dock, but on no, I wanted to drop anchor in
the middle of the small bay for privacy.
So out we went. I dropped anchor and after a little hanky panky,
we went to sleep. Next morning, we woke up on the side of the
boat! The boat listed on it's side overnight but we didn't even
notice it until we woke up! After all my study of the
current and maps and charts, I forgot one little thing: THE TIDE!
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This is not my boat, and actually my boat looked much
worse than this. It was literally on it's side!
There was nothing we could do but wait for the tide to come back in...
For the next couple of days it was like paradise.
There were hundreds of little islands to explore, and when we went
snorkeling, we saw the most beautiful fish that the Bahamas has to
offer. Everything was going well until....
The boat broke.
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The waves were
pushing us towards the rocks and the old engine wouldn't start. I
had no idea why, but when we got back to WV I found out: Burned a valve. Now
I'm on my radio-telephone calling "Pan Pan Pan", which is the emergency
call for people who are in trouble but not as bad as when you put out a
"Mayday!" call, which means you're about to die.
So now what do we do? We managed to get a tow from a good
Samaritan who heard my distress call. He pulled us to the dock where we
waited for a tow back to Florida. This wouldn't be easy, as it
would take a big boat to pull us. So all we could do was wait....
and wait....
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This wonderful
lady ran the nearest Bar, and we told her what happened. I asked
her to see if anyone would give us a tow back to Florida. I
didn't
know it at the time, but she must have asked everyone who came into the
Bar....
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IN THE MEANTIME, A
VERY STRANGE THING HAPPENED:
While we waited
for a tow, we decided to make to best of it. So we donned our
snorkeling gear and spent a couple of days just enjoying the underwater
world of the Bahamas. I had purchased professional snorkeling
gear, so we looked the part.
One day as we were walking back to our boat, we passed a large
sailboat. Much larger than the one in this photo. The owner
of the boat saw us and said "Hey! Can you give me a hand with
something?" I said "Sure", and climbed on board.
Seems he busted his Prop, and needed me to help him put a new on
on. Now, this Prop was huge. It took 2 men to hold it. But
what was REALLY bad was the current. Once again the Tide was going out
and it was so strong, that we had to hang onto the boat with one hand
and hold the Prop between us with the other. But let me back
up: You see, he had two sets of good Scuba gear, which meant we
could go down together. I put mine on and down I went. I
didn't realize that his boat was SO wide, until I got up underneath
it. It looked like to me that should anything happen to my air
supply, there was no way I'd get out from under that boat in time. What
I'm saying is... that I was breathing pretty heavy!
We struggle for awhile but finally got the Prop on. WHEW! That
was a lot of work just trying to stay in place! We came
back up and as I was taking his gear off he said: "Wow! I've never seen
anyone use as much air as you did." He was right, because I was
blowing bubbles to beat the band. I said "I wouldn't know,
because
I've never Scuba'ed before".
"WHAT?"
HE YELLED! "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL
ME?!" "You never asked" I said.
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I repeated that
I had never Scuba's before. Know what he did? He started
screaming at me for not telling him and told me to get off his
boat! Cad you believe that? Here I help the guy and
he cusses me out! But here's the thing: Being a
firefighter, I was very used to wearing an air mask and bottle when
fighting fires. So I figured that Scuba couldn't be ALL that much
different. It really wasn't, but being way under that boat did
make me kind of nervous. Anyway, what's that old saying? "No good deed goes unpunished"
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There was a
concrete table on the dock near our boat. That's where we cooked as
many
meals as possible to save money. But a week later something made
it imposable to ever eat there again: Seems the veterinarian came
to the island about once or twice a month to take care of the animals,
both owned and wild. He did the standard spay and neuter.
So one morning after I woke up in the boat, I was about to fix
breakfast on that table like I always did, but when I looked out, what
did I see? An animal on that table being neutered! There
was no table cloth or anything, and naturally there was some
blood. I watched as they finished-up about an hour later and then
they poured some kind of disinfectant on the table. OK, that's
fine, but we still never ate on the table again.
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DRUGS!
All the while
this was going on, a strange thing was happening: Every morning
and every evening just before dark, a Coast Guard Lear Jet would fly
over our heads with a loud siren! I had never heard such a thing
from the air before. And right behind that Lear Jet was a Coast Guard
helicopter with it's side door open and 2 guys sitting in it. One had a
camera while the other a large photo (I found out later). Seems
there was the biggest marijuana drug bust in the history of the Bahamas
going down. And what they were doing is flying over us with that siren,
causing us to look up, and then take our picture.
They were actually
more interested in the boats that came and went every day. The
first day we were out fishing, this bale of Dope came rolling by and I
called the Coast Guard to inform them. I was about to give them my
concordance, when they said "don't worry, we know where you are".
For weeks bales of marijuana not only washed up on Florida's
shores, but also Georgia, South Carolina, and even North
Carolina. We'd be home a week later and see where those bales
were STILL washing ashore! That Dope must have been on a
small ship or something, because there was so much of it.
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Here
we are about a week later still waiting for a tow. Looking back
on it, I wished I had taken a lot more photos.
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AT LAST!
One day out of
the blue, a boat similar to the one above pulled up beside us, and at
the same time, the lady from the Bar came running. She said that she
talked some people into towing us back to Florida. Just one
problem: No one on that boat spoke English. They were all
Cubans! The lady assured us that the Cubans knew the score
and not to worry. I thanked her from the bottom of my heart all
the while wondering if we might wind-up in Cuba! We barely had
time to wave goodbye because the Cubans never stopped. They just
tossed me a rope and kept going. I barely had time to tie it down
to my boat before we were off!
When we got out of the Bahamas, I got on my radiotelephone and
contacted the Coast Guard. I told them what was going on and asked them
to please keep an eye on us. The Coast Guard responded "don't
worry... we will". Whew! That's good.
WE MADE IT!
The Cubans released us about a hundred yards from the dock, and we had
no paddles. So we found whatever we could and somehow managed to
get the boat to shore. It was a trip that we'll never forget, but
that's not the end of the story....
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On the islands of Bimini, there are wild dogs
called "Pott Hounds". These dogs are friendly, but can be a
nuisance. One of these dogs took a liking to us and followed us
everywhere. We decided that when the time came for us to leave,
we'd take the dog with us. This dog was known by everyone on the
island and they named her "Tootles". When the time did finally
come, and the Cubans tossed us a rope without warning, Tootles was
nowhere around. So we left without her. But several people
knew we wanted the dog and when we got back home, we contacted
them. To make an even longer story short, they captured
Tootles, took her to Florida where she was kept in quarantine for 30
days, and then they flew her to Charleston. There we picked her
up. We should have known better, because Tootles was as close to
being a wild but friendly dog as you could get. She shewed-up
everything in the house and we couldn't let her outside without a leash
because she would just run off. We had to face it: Tootle
was the meaning of being a Free Spirit, and so we decided to give her
to a friend who owned a farm where she could run. And as far as I
know, she ran there until she died of old age.
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THE END
Now about that Drug
bust:
In 1985 a joint
US-Bahamian operation in Bimini netted an incredible 34,000 tons of
marijuana and 2,500 tons of processed cocaine .
In 1983, a report entitled The Bahamas: A Nation For Sale by
investigative television journalist Brian Ross was aired on NBC in the
United States. The report claimed Pindling and his government
(The man responsible for the historic electoral win was Sir Lynden
Pindling, leader of the Bahamas for 25 years - both before and after
its independence in 1973 - known as "Black Moses") accepted
bribes from Colombian drug smugglers, particularly the notorious Carlos
Lehder, co-founder of the Medell�n Cartel, in exchange for allowing the
smugglers to use the Bahamas as a transshipment point to smuggle
Colombian cocaine into the US. Through murder and extortion, Lehder had
gained complete control over the Norman's Cay in Exuma, which became
the chief base for smuggling cocaine into the United States.
Lehder boasted to the Colombian media about his involvement in drug
trafficking at Norman's Cay and about giving hundreds of thousands of
dollars in payoffs to the ruling Progressive Liberal Party, but
Pindling vigorously denied the accusations, and made a testy appearance
on NBC to rebut them. However, the public outcry led to the creation in
1983 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drug Trafficking and
Government Corruption in the Bahamas.
A review of Pindling's personal finances by the Commission found that
he had spent eight times his reported total earnings from 1977 to 1984.
According to the Inquiry: "The prime minister and Lady Pindling have
received at least $57.3 million in cash. Explanations for some of these
deposits were given... but could not be verified."
The New York Times is quoted saying "Sir Lynden spent much of his time
working to improve the reputation of his country, but became vulnerable
to charges of corruption in 1984, when an official commission set up to
investigate drug trafficking in the Bahamas found wide evidence of
official corruption in his cabinet and the Bahamian police. The
commission eventually cleared Sir Lynden of any wrongdoing, but said
that he and his wife had at least $3.5 million in bank deposits that
could not be accounted for.
At the 1987 trial of Carlos Lehder, a founder of the Medellin cocaine
cartel in Colombia, prosecutors charged that Mr. Lehder and other drug
traffickers had paid at least $5 million to Sir Lynden for permission
to use the Bahamas as a shipment point for cocaine and marijuana bound
for the United States."
It is an indication of the level of Pindling's popularity in the
Bahamas at the time that, despite the scandalous claims made against
him in the US media, he never felt the need to resign or call an early
election. Even with the commission's report fresh in voters' minds, he
led his party to another election victory in 1987.
However, in 1992 the opposition Free National Movement (formed by
anti-Pindling factions in 1970) bested the PLP in the General Election,
even though Pindling retained his South Andros seat. The FNM was formed
in 1971 by a union of the so-called "Free-PLP" and the United Bahamian
Party. The Free-PLP were a breakaway group of eight MPs from the then
governing Progressive Liberal Party. This group, which was known as the
"Dissident Eight," led by the popular Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield.
After Pindling's defeat in the August 1992 elections, new Prime
Minister Hubert Ingraham "strongly rejected the idea that Sir Lynden or
any member of his Government should be extradited to the United States
to face possible charges. Witnesses in the trials of both Carlos
Lehder, a founder of the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia, and Gen.
Manuel Antonio Noriega, the deposed Panamanian dictator, testified to
payoffs to Sir Lynden, and some United States officials have long
recommended that he be indicted on drug-trafficking charges."
The FNM won a second landslide victory in 1997, and Pindling retired
from politics shortly afterward. He was succeeded by Perry Christie.
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