At the time, 1964, I was working for the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, doing survey
work for the Atlantic Missile Range in the Bahamas. We had finished the construction
of two 116' steel surveying towers on St Georges Island, just off Spanish Wells,
Eleuthera. The goal was to survey and measure distance to Hole in the Wall on Abaco.

We left Spanish Wells on a nice day in a 35' former tourist boat used for viewing the
bottom in one of the 'springs' in Florida (Silver Springs?, not sure). Anyway, the
boat had a glass bottom. The trip across the channel was pretty uneventful, but as we
approached Hole in the Wall, wind and rain seemed to come out of nowhere, and we ran
into some big waves. Somehow, the rope pulling the Whaler (privately owned by the guy
who owned the boat we chartered) got caught on one of the oarlocks and started
pulling the Whaler sideways. There was nothing we could do but watch the damn thing
fill with water. Soon the drag broke the tow rope and the Whaler was history.

We kept trying to get around the south end of the damn rock, but whenever we
approached, the waves would drive us back. We had carried an extra 55gal drum of
fuel, but we'd already been tapping that, so we had to give up on the idea of getting
around the rock and putting in.

I might mention here that 'Rooster', our 'captain' had no charts on the boat. It
turned out the only food he had was a couple cans of corned beef, some onions and
some bread.

Anyway, we headed north close by the east edge of the island. Eventually we spotted
some houses and a small 'harbor' so we decided to put in there. I believe, looking at
the map, that was 'Crossing Rocks'.

As we headed in, I was in the bow and happened to look into the water. I screamed. We
were passing over coral heads that appeared to be only a foot below the surface.
Rooster got the boat stopped, and we started slowly working our way around and
inbetween these things. I was scared ****less, along with the other five guys on
board.

We made it into the 'harbor', the other side of the rocks which formed a small
barrier, and dropped our anchor. Rooster backed the boat to set the anchor, and the
anchor rode broke. Yup. No anchor. Luckily a couple of the guys on the beach saw what
happened and came out to offer assistance. For a sum (don't remember the amount) they
would retrieve our anchor for us. We took up a collection, paid them, they got out a
glass-bottomed pail, and retrieved the anchor.

We spent the night there. The folks told us they'd never seen a boat come in that
way. They were surprised we made it. So was I.

The next day we took off working our way further up the island. We got to a nice bay
before we ran totally out of fuel, and anchored again. We'd eaten the canned corn
beef the day before, so we were out of food. The folks at the last stop had used up
our money getting the anchor, so we couldn't pay for anything from them. There was no
grocery store there anyway.

Rooster took off, worked his way to the highway, and hitchhiked to Marsh Harbor. Once
there he called the boat owner who flew to Marsh Harbor, picked up Rooster, and flew
down the coast to find us. He had a twin-engined Cessna of some sort. (Don't even ask
me how he steered it!). He flew over us a couple times, wagging the wings, and a few
hours later we got picked up by a van. We drove to Marsh Harbor, boarded his
airplane, and flew back to Eleuthra.

Yup, that was quite a trip. Later we went back to Marsh Harbor with a bigger boat (a
converted WW2 PT boat). We trucked our way down to Hole in the Wall and put up our
towers.

End of story. We didn't have any bait, so couldn't even do any fishing while waiting!
--

Guns don't cause problems.
Gun owner behavior causes problems.