We just returned from Tiger Beach, Bahamas for the first trip of the new travel year. I wish I could say it was the perfect trip, with perfect seas and lots and lots of big sharks. Sadly, we can’t say that. I am happy to report that we had lots of big sharks, however the conditions were less than favorable. We had wind, and swells and horrible, horrible visibility. We did make the most of it though and dove as much as the ocean would allow us too. And thankfully everyone that joined us was super pumped and made the most of everyday we were out there. So thanks again to our friends who joined us out there, you guys are awesome.

I did keep a journal of our trip, so figured the best way to narrate this story is to give you guys a look at my daily journal - and the highs and lows of life in and on the ocean for this trip.

January 20, 2020 - Sitting here at Fish Tales, and haven’t been able to dive yet. It has been crap vis with wind all morning. When we arrived, we had just hit low tide and with the wind, we didn’t have any visibility. So this morning has been a lot of editing for me and chatting it up with a few of our guests.

AT THE END OF THE DAY…
Today’s dive report - It was shit, shit, shit visibility at Fish Tales. We had plenty of tigers including; Hook, Maui, I think Tequila made an appearance, Dirty girl? (I think), a couple of tigers I didn’t really know and Jitter Bug is back. Damn! She is no  longer pregnant, which means, she pupped her first litter of babies. This was officially her first litter. So this means, she will be fattening up this season and maybe she will be breeding again this season. I don’t know if she will be breeding this winter, not sure when exactly she pupped? But next winter for sure she will. So if we are on schedule for a late winter 2020 mating, then the following winter 2021, she should be pupping again. So my prediction is she will show up very fat in December 2021. If she doesn’t breed sooner.  

Anyway, so we did three dives today including a sunset dive that turned into a night dive, with a bait crate, which was scary as fudge. There was four tigers including Jitter Bug. Hook showed up and so did Dirty Girl, and some random tiger I didn’t know. The vis was horrible, maybe 15-20 feet, if that. I only brought five pieces of bait down with me, and thankfully so. The tigers didn’t go crazy because the bait scent was not strong. Jitterbug was a pain in the ass and super on fire. She is still up to her old trick and really hard to work with. I do hope she calms down. Never fun when she acts like that, especially at night in low vis conditions.

Tomorrow looks like it may be blown out and if it is, I am going to record our first podcast with Capt. Scott. It is fitting that he is part of my first podcast. I built my career abroad the Dolphin Dream working with tigers, and this is a great way to pay homage to the super good guy that helped me do it. Gonna be a good day, either way! 

January 21, 2020 - Weather day. However we did get one morning dive in. It was a freaking mess. We had ok vis near the surface, but at the bottom it was complete shit. When we jumped in, we had some swells, but no whitecaps, by the middle of the dive the vis got worse and we called it a day. When I hit the surface, the wind had kicked in hard and the boat was rocking and rolling in a stormy sea. The ocean was mean today. After everyone boarded up, we ran for a safe place to lee up.

We had three tigers, Freckles, Jitterbug and Kim Possible. Stressful day. Jitterbug, is such a pesky shark. Tigers are comfortable in the murk, and we needed to keep a close eye on her whenever she showed up. Today also marked the return of bull sharks ( they were around the prior week, but my first time seeing them here this winter season), to Tiger Beach. In December they were a no-show, but they were back. Here off TB, they are well behaved, so they are always a welcomed treat.

January 22, 2020 - Well no diving today. We had some major weather issues this trip and we had to take shelter behind the island of Grand Bahamas. Some of the guests dove on a reef that was pretty, but no real life on it to pass the time. There are no animals due to the locals fishing it out. Sad really.

I did learn something amazing yesterday. One of my favorite tigers Freckles, showed up at TB this past October with a torn up dorsal fin. It looks like she will be breeding this winter and the boys are getting ready for her. In October, it didn’t look like a successful mating because only her dorsal fin was torn up. Normally, when I believe the matings are more successful is when the female has bite marks on her body, which shows me that she has allowed a male to get close enough to her to pin her down for a mating. I think fin bites only on a tiger, means she is running from them as they are trying to catch her. When I saw her yesterday, she had a lot more bite marks on her body, which showed me that she either had a successful pairing, or she is about to mate any day now.

I snapped a picture of her yesterday which showed her dorsal fin which is healing and filling in super fast. the time span is about three months. Their healing strength and speedy fin regeneration ability is awesome.

Tonite we depart for Bimini. Sadly, we did not have epic blue water dives for our guests with tiger sharks. We did have tiger sharks, but not the dives you read, see and dream about when planning a trip to Tiger Beach. Always makes me feel bad for our guests when that happens. The ocean can be cruel.

January 23, 2020 - BIMINI ISLAND well we had a good day of diving today. We dove three times with great hammerheads and bull sharks. The first dive, conditions were amazing. Blue water, lots of sun and four great hammerheads with well behaved nurse sharks. The boys put the bait box on a buoy and that seemed to help control the nurse sharks. The second and third dive, conditions sort of fell apart. We had low tide roll in with the weird smokey haze it brings with it. We had less hammers with about five bulls. They are getting braver it seems and may be forcing out the hammers.

I managed some fun pics that I am proud of. Hopefully tomorrow we will get better conditions and more chances for images. Hoping for a good last day for our guests, they deserve it after this week.

January 24, 2020 - Final day of diving. Our day started out great. We woke up to a flat calm ocean with perfect skies. We had three great hammerheads show up and right away, it was going off. The hammers were coming in to the bait box and it was an amazing time. With the new baitbox set up, the nurse sharks were behaving themselves and it was just awesome. It was a great beginning to our day.

THEN… the bull sharks showed up and it became a shit show. The bulls scared off the hammerheads and they no longer were interested in visiting the bait box. So the dive turned into a bull shark dive, which wouldn’t be bad, if we were there to dive with bull sharks. The hammerheads were around, they just spent their time in the out skirts of the dive, and stopped coming in. All in all it was a good day of diving, but without the bulls, it would of been better.

I wanted to say thanks to our friends who joined us out there… thanks for being troopers while mother nature kicked us around. You guys are so freaking awesome!