The Bimini Road

These 3 photos of the ancient artifact known colloquially as the "Bimini Road" are the most publicly used photo sequence of any of my dive travels. They have been used with permission on a 2 hour History Channel feature presentation, a 1 hour ancient mysteries presentation on Canadian TV, 3 archeological books on various topics, and numerous smaller presentations. They have also been widely stolen by diveshops and dive photo web pages for various reasons of their own.

I took these 3 photos during a short dive expedition to Bimini with my archelogical friends Allison Stenger and Chuck Hibbs in June of 1999, using the venerable Nikonos RS with it's 13mm lens, then and now, the best wide angle lens in the underwater business. Photos of the road are at a depth of 14 feet. The remaining photos are from Rainbow Reef, and nearby low profile reef at depths of 25-32 feet.

There and Back

Chuck, Allison and their group flew in from Portland Oregon, taking Chalk's from Miami to Alicetown and romed at the Bimini Big Game Club. I ran the Running Free, my my 35 Luhrs the 80 miles down to Dinner Key in Miami from it's home dock in West Palm the previous weekend. The following Wednesday I soloed the 45 miles across the gulf stream to Alicetown to meet up with them, docking in the Big Game Club Marina. We dove for 4 days on the road and nearby scenic reef sites with Bill and Nawdla O'Keefe's dive operation, and used my boat as support. On the return I just pushed the Running Free thru bumpy seas from the southwest wind blowing into Bimini Bay, came around to north and rode the gulf stream the 95 miles directly back to West Palm Beach, dodging thunderstorms along the way.