Winter Bahamas

by Nicholas Walsh, PA

Typical 80-ft lobster boat, steel or glass, built on the southern shrimp boat model.

Soon after we arrived in Vero Beach, Florida, we motored 25 miles south to Fort Pierce, where we hauled the boat, painted the bottom and changed the zincs. Then we flew home for the holidays, arriving back in Florida in January.

We soon got ourselves to (and much enjoyed) Miami, and the problem became how to cross the Gulf Stream? The Gulf Stream, of course, flows at 3 to 4 knots north, and to venture into the Stream in a strong northerly is to invite disaster in the steep, breaking waves prevailing in those conditions, as the crew of the yacht Revonoc learned before they all drowned. The crossing from Miami to Bimini is about 50 miles, and at our 6 knots we needed a good day to get across.

Our first try was a bust. We were up well before dawn, with the forecast 15 to 20 southeast. A fair wind, and the breeze following the current – it sounded pretty good.

Wrong. As soon as we were off soundings the seas got rough. The boat did well, but we were going really slow, and we soon headed back in.

In a small boat, the weather you want for crossing the Stream can be summed up in a word: calm. There is something about the Gulf Stream that no matter the direction, any amount of wind kicks up a sea. Go when it’s clock calm.

That’s what we did a few days later, motoring steadily across and making good time. By mid-afternoon we were off Bimini, lunching on blackfin tuna we’d trolled up in the purple whirlpools on the edge of the Stream.

We went past Bimini and were soon on the Little Bahamas Bank. When night came, we anchored rather than risk grounding on a coral head. It was strange to anchor out of sight of land in 15 foot water, but we hung a bright light in the rigging, the better not to be run down by an inter-island freighter, and slept well.

Our destination was the Berry Islands, southwest of the Abacos, an out of the way archipelago. We arrived mid afternoon, our first Bahamian anchorage, palm trees and everything.

I went for a swim, looking for conchs, and stayed in a long time and went far from the boat. Ellen was plenty mad when I got back. I hadn’t told her I’d be gone so long, and I hadn’t told her where I was going. In a discussion that went far toward establishing a philosophy for the rest of the voyage, we agreed that we were now in a highly dynamic environment, where we did not understand and could not predict all the risks, and that we must manage risk by being conservative and acting deliberately.

The winter winds blew east, 25 to 30 knots day and night, which can get to a guy. We learned about turtle grass, a tough seabed grass an anchor cannot penetrate. We learned to look for a patch of sand in the grass, and dropped the anchor in those. We learned to dive on the anchor, making sure it was set.

The Berrys delivered. We found and feasted on conch and other critters. There was superb snorkeling. In contrast to the Bahamas of forty years ago there were many turtles, on account of it now being illegal to kill turtle.

A few days later we sailed to Eleuthera, across the Northeast Providence Channel. We spent the first night at Spanish Wells, a pretty, prosperous town full of fishermen, with an excellent boatyard. Some years ago a native of Spanish Wells made a fortune in Nassau real estate. He brought his money back to Spanish Wells and set up a bank for the locals so they could use low rate loans to build a fleet. Now the town is the center of the Bahamian lobster industry, and it has the highest per capita income in the country.

The lobster boats are about 80 feet long, steel or glass, built on the southern shrimp boat model. Their trips are up to five weeks, and they go throughout the Bahamas. The boats tow several tough eighteen-foot dive boats behind them, each equipped with a hookah rig providing air to a diver via a hose, with the compressor on deck. The big boat anchors up, and off go the dive boats to pre-set “condos” on the shallow sea floor. The condos, which are unbaited and which are marked only by GPS, consist of a 4 by 8 sheet of corrugated steel roofing with a 4-inch concrete block at each corner. The lobsters hide under the steel, and the diver hooks them out with a gaff. As each lobster is caught, its head is twisted off and the tail deposited into a bag. Typically a dolphin or two stands by to gobble the carapace, and the dolphins keep sharks away as well. The Bahamas have plenty of tiger sharks, yet we were told that thanks to Flipper a Spanish Wells lobster diver has never been attacked.

The Bahamas exports 4 to 6 million pounds of Panulirus argus tails each year, 60% to the US, 40% to the EU. Ex vessel price for tails is generally $8 to $10 per pound. The season closes from April to July. In 2018 the Marine Stewardship Council certified the fishery sustainable. The science suggests that condos significantly increase lobster populations, particularly in seagrass (non-coral) areas, where shelter is apparently a limiting factor.

10% of fishermen use traps, typically baited with cow hide. Traps must be wood, which are thought to degrade more quickly when gear is lost. Traps are set in trawls, marked only by GPS, no buoys. (The gear is set in water less than 40 feet deep, and of course the water is clear as gin.) Some lobsters are taken by spear.

A dive boat has two crew, and they swap off diving and tending. The big boats are super clean and nice, with comfortable quarters and a spacious shaded after deck (and one huge gasoline tank on that deck), often with a dartboard, gas grill, and TV. The photo shows a typical such boat, the “Comfort Zone.”

Each operation is owned by the crew, with the exception of a hired kid to get the catch into the freezer, and maybe the mechanic. Most boys join the fishery at age eighteen, upon graduating high school, and they buy into a boat and marry young as well. Their incomes are often $150,000 a year or thereabouts, and by age 30 they own a home free and clear. There are several busy churches in town. The social compact seems as strong as in any community I have seen, almost no drunkenness, theft or other bad behavior. We liked Spanish Wells.

Leaving Spanish Wells, we sailed south along the western shore of Eleuthera – I’ll pick it up next month.

Stay out of trouble.

Nicholas Walsh is an admiralty lawyer practicing in Portland. He may be reached at 772-2191, or nwalsh@gwi.net.