News for Ocean Fox Cotton Bay - Fall 2011
"Eleuthera it's not for everybody" as the saying goes is true, but we have had more clients who came to Eleuthera to dive and fish exactly for that reason. They continue to talk about the beautiful beaches with almost no one on them, love the quiet life style, and are amazed at the clarity of the water. Quoting writer Tarra Gaines, writing for Culturemap Houston in the Houston/Austin Texas area, "The only real challenge would be to look for an ugly or populous beach." Well said.
Hurricane Irene, of which the eye of the storm went directly over the marina, did no damage to the shop or vessels; we buttoned down for the worst, but were relieved when the storm had passed. The storm did some damage to the island, mostly vegetation, but we have had plentiful rains since and everything is green and growing.
The diving has been spectacular; we have discovered some new wall dives and reefs, including dives on Little San Salvador. The Little San Salvador trip is an all day, 3 tank dive, with a boat ride of 22 miles each way, which means the weather has to be cooperating to make the trek. But the coral on the reefs is absolutely clean; the fish, along with the occasional turtle, appear to have never seen divers. Water temperature in early November is 78 degrees, very nice for diving.
We had Doc and his friends join us for three days of diving and after a morning two tank dive they decided they wanted to fish. We were away from the dock for 2 ½ hours for fishing and caught three (3) nice dolphin. The group was staying at the Grey House (sleeps 6) in old Cotton Bay, 5 minutes from the Dive Shop on the Atlantic shoreline (with good snorkeling in front of the house) and thus Trish, the lady who takes care of the guests, prepared the dolphin for dinner. What a treat! Actually, Trish did an outstanding job of shopping for food, preparing breakfast and dinner as well as snacks to take on the dive trips. Get up in the morning, have breakfast, go diving and fishing, return to cocktails and dinner. Finish dinner, retire to the porch, listen to the waves breaking on the Atlantic, watch the stars, go to bed, get up the next day and repeat the process. Very nice.
Fishing has been great, catching good dolphin and black fin tuna, have not seen the Wahoo yet, they should arrive by the end of November. We are setting up a 4 night, 3 day fishing excursion utilizing the Gray House for up to 6 guests centered around the Full Moon and New Moon, the best fishing days of the month. If interested please drop us an email, it will be an all inclusive package, lodging, fishing, food, and car.
Ocean Fox Cotton Bay hosted famed photographer Wade Livingston with super model Delany for a travel shoot for the December/January edition of FD Luxe Magazine. Helping coordinate the shoot was Tammy Theis owner of wallflower management, Kyle with FD Luxe and Al the makeup coordinator. They tried doing some shooting at the Governor's Harbour Friday Night Fish Fry, what a treat for the locals. Then we took them all out for a bit of snorkeling, which included a bathing suit shoot on the Rum Boat, "water was so green and the air so clean, that he stuck right to his task, Havanna day dreaming, Oh he's just scheming, his life away." Jimmy Buffet
One of our sons, Alan, a diesel technician with Elite Diesel Service of Kemah Texas, and his wife Heather, came down to do the annual service on the diesels on Potcake and Underdog; after the work was done we spent Friday fishing, 4 dolphins, big mackerel, the usual 4 or so barracudas along with some bottom fishing with light tackle when the tide was slack (as everybody knows, when the tide is slack the pelagic fish don't bite). The dolphin turned into Janice's famous fish tacos for dinner. Thanks Alan for helping out with the business.
Thanks to everyone who has gone diving and fishing with Ocean Fox Cotton Bay, we are now on facebook and posting diving updates regularly, we also have had some very nice write-ups on Trip Advisor, thanks to those who took the time to write about us. Al is now a dive master, working on instructor, so when he is on island, there will be two DM's on the dives, and hopefully we'll get some good photographs of your dive for you to take home.
If you are coming this way and need some help with where to stay, how to get around, where to eat and so forth, please contact us. Enjoy the fall and we hope to see you soon.