Okay. You should know at the very outset that this title was Merry’s idea. It teases the reader (provided, of course, that the reader is really stupid) with the prospect of an encounter with a deadly, raging tornado that has sucked up a swirl of man-eating sharks and is dumping them into swimming pools filled with bikini-clad girls resulting in fearful, but for some younger male viewers strangely erotic consequences – a remote scientific impossibility depicted in the Sy-Fy channel made-for-cable TV movie which bears this title.

A much more accurate title for this article on our blog would be, We Make Our Very Slow Way Through the Bahamas on Our Way Home Because Wiley Does Not Really Want to Go Home Yet and is Engaging in Passive Aggressive Behavior to keep us in the Bahamas as Long as Possible Even Though He Knows Merry Needs to Get Home as soon as Possible to Get Ready to Teach Her June Course at Aurora University.

We sailed from Hopetown to the anchorage at marsh Harbor, where we bought groceries, had dinner at Mangos, and listened to the conch horns at sunset for the last time in 2013. It was here that Merry asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, which was in two days. (An instructional note: you should never ask this question if one of the probable answers constitutes a horrifying prospect for you). I, of course, told Merry that I would like to go back to the “the Wall,” where three (sort of) circling Bull sharks had sent a shiver down her wet-suited spine, causing her to vow never to return to that location. We had discussed this over the weeks since, with me presenting the argument that we could go diving at some site miles from “the Wall” and encounter the exact same three sharks.

After all, I argued its not like the sharks own condos at ‘the Wall” that they live in all the time. In the event, my “spadework” must have paid off coupled with the implicit promise, when she asked me the question that my birthday wish would be granted. The weather was to be nearly perfect on my birthday, and we would sail to an anchorage off Man-O’War Cay, and then get up early the next morning and sail to the anchorage near the Wall.

We had never anchored in this spot of Man O’War before and it turned out to be a neat spot. With mask, fins, and snorkel, I cleaned the bottom of the boat – an easy and fun task, in clear water and no current – and Merry and I went snorkeling. We found a huge underwater pile of conch shells – probably deposited by the Bahamian fisherman over the years – and a rock pile that was full of reef fish including a nice spotted moray eel. We then swam ashore and discovered that at this point, Man O’War is only about 100 feet across from the Sea of Abaco side to the Atlantic Ocean side. However, the Atlantic side was all sharp rocks, and although I found a spot where I think we could climb into the water even in full SCUBA gear, a pretty good surf was running, so we didn’t even try to snorkel there. Of course, I am determined to try it next year, when the seas are calmer.

We had motored into the anchorage at something close to high tide, but when w left the next morning, at something approaching low tide, we barely scraped our way across the bar at the mouth of the anchorage – guess I should have looked a the chart more carefully before we went in!

We made it across, and up Loggerhead Passage to the anchorage off Fowl Key, and dropped the anchor. The anchor rode ran out very rapidly, indicating a strong current, but since it was my birthday, and we would be swimming into the current on the way to the Wall (and thus, would have the current with us on the swim back to the boat), after setting the anchor and making sure that Bruce (a 37 pound “Bruce anchor) was not dragging we donned our wetsuits and scuba gear and entered the water by noon.

There was a strong current and surge underwater , so the swim to Grouper Pass and out to the Wall was an excellent aerobic and lower body workout. Merry again encountered and pet her big Grouper friend who seemed glad to see her, and swam up to right away. When we got to the wall guess what? It turns out that the Bull Sharks do own condos at that spot, because they were still there! We also saw Blacktip reef sharks. However, they all seemed very uninterested in us, with the exception of a single bull Shark , which followed Merry for a while. Because of the surge, we had to kick hard for much of the time, but we saw all sorts of nice corals, sponges and reef fish (in addition to the sharks). On the swim back to the boat, we were for some reason unable to locate Grouper Pass, and ended up surfacing and swimming over the reef, which was difficult because the waves were lifting us up and then setting us down on the reef, a bad thing for both the reef and us! We will take steps to make sure this never happens again.

Nonetheless it was a great dive, with 56 minutes of “bottom time” – remarkable because Merry’s little 63 cubic foot SCUBA tank. On the whole I have to say, what a great birthday!

It wasn’t even over yet. Merry had bought Italian sausage at Maxwell’s up in Marsh Harbor, and told me that she would cook sausage and spaghetti, for my “birthday dinner”. My favorite! We planned to spend the night anchored in the harbor at Treasure Cay. We could have sailed to Treasure, but we would have had to tack back and forth to get there and that would have taken longer, so I fired up Tim McGee, our new diesel, and we motored and had the anchor down before sunset.

My birthday ended in the cockpit with Italian sausage, a nice bottle of Chianti, and a beautiful consort, the harbor grew quiet and night descended on Treasure Cay.

Of course, Merry should treat me in this manner every day, but her unjustified fear of Bull sharks – and the lack of such sharks in Northern Illinois, where we live – keeps her from doing so.

It rained and blew for much of three days and nights while we were at Treasure Cay, but we did have some intervals to enjoy the three mile long beach, and have lunch at the bar on the beach. Merry went snorkeling off the beach in about three feet of water, and collected beautiful little shells that no else (including me) seed to notice. I had been telling myself that I was training for the Chicago Triathlon (which I had signed up for) when I swam in Hopetown, and a couple of times, I swam way out from the beach a Treasure Cay, until the buildings on shore were really small. This felt safe because these were no waves or current, and the only boat traffic was a few dinghys and rented jet skis.

After five nights at anchor, we finally got a clear day and mostly a good weather report, although a possibility of thunderstorms was noted. We always wait for good weather to through “the Whale”, I pulled the anchor up, and we left Treasure Cay. In spite of the wind and rain, our stay there was much better than on the way down the Abacos, when Merry had gotten sick.

Our passage through Loggerhead Passage and then through the Whale was beautiful and uneventful. The Atlantic was calm and at one point we could see the bottom in 40 feet of water!

We planned to anchor at No Name Cay and go ashore to see the wild pigs that live there. I anchored way out from the cay, because of my paranoia over shallow water, and we boarded Dimples and motored ashore. There was a sand beach, but inland was nothing but sharp pointy – mean limestone rock. The pigs were not in evidence.

We have now reached the tornado part. We saw a dark cloud, like a wall cloud, coming from the west, so we hastened back to dimples and got underway. We saw a funnel cloud begin to form, and reach down – it appeared the tornado was over Great Abaco Island. Just then, the little hard working – 2hp outboard motor on Dimples began to sputter a bit, which was bad, because the tornado was now on the ground. You could see the debries cloud at its base – and we were still maybe 3/4ths of a mile from Les Miserables. It dawned on me to ask Merry, “have we checked the oil on the outboard since we left Indiantown in January. Neither of us could remember having done so, although we knew that the outboard had plenty of gas. The tornado seemed closer, but to our relief whatever had been annoying Dimples’ outboard ceased, and it settled down to its usual purr, and we were relieved to reach the boat. We were anchored in poor holding ground with shallows nearby, so we decided to get underway. Merry started the engine, and I concentrated on getting the anchor up. By the time I had the anchor on deck and secured, the tornado had disappeared, but we spotted a second funnel cloud not long after. Both missed us, so our remaining passage was mostly uneventful. It was still only mid-afternoon when we reached White Sound at Green Turtle Cay.

There we observed the forlorn sight of a big Beneteau sailboat hard aground in the middle of the channel. The crew told us that the deepest water was close along their starboard side, so we passed within two feet of their toe-rail and up the channel to our old haunt the Green Turtle Club and Marina.

We stayed at Green Turtle or eight nights. For most of this time, we had high winds and lots of rain. We dined, drank yellowbirds at the Green Turtle Club, rented a golf cart and drove into New Plymouth. When weather and surf allowed we went snorkeling at the Atlantic Beach on Coco bay. We wanted to go out on the boat from Brendal’s Dive Center, but the seas on the Atlantic were too rough. We consulted the “weather guru” Chris Parker, who told us that it could be as long as two-weeks before we could have a good passage to West End. Merry began making contingency plans to fly home from the Bahamas and leave me there, so that she could teacher her June class at AU.

Alas, the weather changed and we departed Green Turtle on a windy, but clear day. We encountered several squalls, and had to take down the main sail at one point. At the end of the day, we anchored in the south harbor of uninhabited Great Sale Cay.

The next day we made the L(for us) bold decision to attempt the Indian Cay Passage as a short cut to West End, instead of going out and around Memory Rock in deep water as we had the previous two years. The Indian Cay passage goes by Barracuda Shoal, and is narrow, shallow and tricky. We used Merry watching the bottom and maybe a dozen GPS waypoints, but we made it! We arrived at West End- our last part in the Bahamas with plenty of daylight.

My fate was settled. We would be in Indiantown, Florida within a week, unloading the boat, renting a truck, and driving home to what I now perceived as a dull suburban existence.

It’s better in the Bahamas.