On Tuesday, we headed out to the dock in the morning and arrived at a giant powerboat for an all day excursion through Powerboat Adventures. This huge 1000hp boat headed out about 40 miles to the Exuma islands. We were flying through the water, and it still took almost an hour to get to our first stop - an island where we fed ignauanas grapes. The water was this amazing blue and you felt like you were in the middle of nowhere, except for these two sailboats parked in the bay. The iguanas were huge and while they'd eat grapes off of a stick, you got the feeling they'd just as soon grab a finger from you. From there, they cranked on the miami vice theme song and we headed off to their private island to hang out for the rest of the day.
When we arrived at the island, we were greeted with blue water, an beach bar and an explanation that the sharks, wild boar and sting rays were real and could hurt you if you were stupid. We immediately grabbed a drink and then headed out into the water to check out the sharks and sting rays swimming around.
As Nardo cleaned the fish, he would toss the guts into the water and get them all worked up into a frenzy as we watched. You can see from the picture of Emily below with my father-in-law Ron, that she had no fear. On the right is the feeding of the sharks and sting ray.
It amazed me how close these things were and how close we could get to them. Even cooler was being able to the water to feed the sting-rays. We all knelt down in the water and put pieces of fish in our hands. The stingrays would swim buy and take it right out of your hands if you did it right, which I apparently didn't, because I got my finger bit.
Afterward they lined us up and started wrangling this shark in using the grouper carcass on the end of a piece of rope. After watching the sharks come in close, he asked for a volunteer and Emily jumped right in to help. These Sharks were six feet long and she had no fear of them. I was impressed.
After Shark wrangling, we went snorkeling in the island's reef. They took us to the end of the island and put us in the current. It was effortless, as we'd lay there and float and the current would take you over the reef to check out the reef. The kids loved it, especially Maddie, who floated with Nardo, the leader. He swam down and got her a conch shell, which she loved. The pic on the left is of the us snorkeling.
After snorkeling, we had a giant meal of fresh-grilled grouper. It was delicious.
There was a giant boar on the island that would just lay around and look scary. This thing was 500lbs at least. We all took pictures with it, kind of like the guys in the movie The Hangover posing with Mike Tyson while he slept.
As I mentioned, this was Mom and Dad's 40th anniversary. I hope Cathie and I are following their example 23 years from now.
The trip back seemed to fly by, especially for my brother-in-law Ed. He started the boat ride dancing, ended it with a nice nap. The whole excursion was a blast. I don't know how you could script a better day, unless it ended with a bit day at the blackjack tables, which it did.
The only thing that could have made the trip back better was to have had my brother-in-law Ed dance for me, and my sister-in-law Stacy to refer to herself in third person:
You can see all of the pictures in Picasa here and here.
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