What a crazy week for a last charter! The week started off great. We had the Dr. John from the iguana group back again for a different assignment and with him came Ron, Lynn, and Jeff. The objective was to move as many iguanas as we could catch from Allen's Cay to Flat Rock. The reason was because the Sheer-water birds (endangered or something) were being eaten by barn owls that had started coming to the area because of mice brought to the island by boats. So the idea was to spray and kill all the mice to stop the barn owls from coming over to save the Sheer-waters. Only problem was no one knew of the affects of the spray on the iguanas and if they might eat the poisoned mice. (Confusing right?) So the idea was to move all the iguanas (only around 20 so they believed) to Flat rock for a year and by using transmitters inserted in the iguanas we could find them next year and put them back. So we had a vet and vet assistant, Robert and Andrea come as well to do surgery on the iguanas. Along with John and the group from May that returned there were a couple other friends who had come on previous trips. Stesha, Rick, Dan, Dave, and John's wife, Sheila, who had never in 25 years been on the trip!
The trip started off great. The group got in early enough on saturday to sail on over to the Exumas. We started off early Sunday to catch all the giant iguanas we could find. The first morning we didn't see a single iguana. After lunch however we were a lot better and came in with 4. One small one which raised the question of if they had found a way to nest on the island, Dr. John had always thought the terrain to rocky. The other 3 were not marked before which meant there might be a few more than 20 iguanas. More work cut out for us. Monday came with another morning of nothing but that afternoon we had caught 3 and the vets had successfully completed 3 iguana surgeries on the boat. Monday evening plans were discussed as to what to do about Tropical storm Irene who was headed our way. We decided to head back in to Nassau which was unfortunate since the group did not get to finish all their work. Tuesday the vets finished the surgery on the iguanas we caught and we did a little more searching and one last lemon joy bath. Then that afternoon we headed back as the wind started picking up. I was very sad to say goodbye to the Exumas.
The gang at lunch! Ron, Sheila, Dr. John, Jeff, Lynn, Stesha, Dave, Dan, and Rick!
Washing the Iguanas...
We got into Nassau late Tuesday night and boats were already tied in and people already boarding windows to get ready. We spent wednesday spiderwebbing our boat in and tying lines to Houseboat marks and helping him move stuff out. He decided to move everything out of his boat because he didn't think it would make it through the storm. We heard few reports of lots of damage in the southwestern bahamas on wednesday as we sent our group to stay off at the very accommodating Buckner's. They are friends of Dr. John's and have a beautiful home in Nassau where the whole group stayed for Irene and we brought them dinner wednesday night. I got to buckle down the hatches (literally) and ride the storm on the dock. The winds picked up wednesday night and it rained all night as the edge of now Hurricane Irene went by. The peak of the storm was at about 9 Thursday morning. We went out around 7 to check lines on other boats and check on our friend Wesley the security guard. Bruce, Sheila, Matt and I were very happy to stay down in the bunks and gets some R&R for a late morning. With Bruce reading “The Perfect Storm” and me “The Hungry Ocean” we felt very lucky with our current situation. We had a delicious lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese and watched a movie. Yes I know, very adventurous. The winds got up to about 80 but we were tied in really well and hardly rocked at all! We took dinner over to the Buckner's again and had a good time and great conversation. Friday morning the group returned and we spent the day exploring the Atlantis aquarium and eating conch salad and fritters at potters cay. That evening Chris took us over to Green Parrot on his boat for dinner and we had a great time! Our friends, Jim and Eddy on the Angler Em came to dinner with us and then allowed us on their boat to explore “how the other half lives” on there beautiful fishing yacht.
As the group left saturday I was very sad to see them go. I hated that their time in the Exumas was cut short and that our last charter spent nights not on the boat and tied in Nassau. Irene just did not come at an opportune time. I was very glad that there were no injuries or serious damages to the homes of people we know or most of the island. I was very impressed at the immediate response that Bahamians had to clean the roads and help each other get prepared for the hurricane. We were very blessed and if I am in a hurricane again I hope it is in an environment so well prepared.
Our conch friends heading back for the storm. (Yes that is all conch)
Dr. John in his element!
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