The last time I visited Bimini, the closest island in the Bahamian chain to the United States, was in 1996 for the Formula Boats FAS3Tech line media introduction. I arrived there via Chalks Ocean Airways, a funky, charming, sketchy and since-defunct seaplane service between Miami and the two dots of open-ocean land that comprise Bimini. For the return leg of the two-day trip, I rode back in a 27-foot sportboat from the Decatur, Ind., company and wished I hadn’t courtesy of the 4- to 6-foot seas we battled all the way home.
Short version? I got my soaking-wet back- and front-sides handed to me.
Since then, this job has taken me to a bunch of international destinations including Belgium, Canada, England, France, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru and Sweden. But for reasons that still escape me, I’ve never been back to Bimini, much less explored the islands beyond it.
Thanks to Mark Fisher, the owner of Deep Impact Boats, that will change tomorrow. Fisher invited me to join me to join him and his crew for the seven-day, 34th annual Florida Powerboat Club Bahamas Poker Run on new a Deep Impact 499 center console equipped with six Mercury Racing 500R outboard engines.
It took me a few seconds to respond because I was choking on the coffee I inhaled when Fisher extended the invite. Once I could breathe, I said something super-low-key like, “Are you f-ing kidding me, dude? Hell yes, I am in.”
I wasted no time trying to play it cool with that, “Let me check my schedule” rubbish. I already know my work-travel schedule this summer. It’s packed.
But for seven days of exploring the Bahamas? Yeah, I found a way to make it fit.
I know what you’re thinking when I describe the next seven days as “work travel.” I can see your head shake and your eyes roll. Fair enough. But then, no one ever says to me, “You’re going to cover a summer event in the South? Can I come? Please?”
And I mean no one.
This isn’t my first adventure with Fisher and his wife, Eileen. In 2015, speedonthewater.com co-publisher Jason Johnson—OK, he’s my former co-publisher but I’m still living in denial—and I joined the couple and two of their friends for the Florida Powerboat Club Key West Poker Run in a 36-foot Deep Impact center console. The wind was so ferocious that day that even the normally docile the Intracoastal Waterway was stacked with jagged 2- to 4-footers. So we took a fine beating most of the way.
Quick fun fact? A couple of years later in a former life I blew up all on my own, I hosted the Fishers and other then-members of the Manheim Auto Group out for a top-seller awards-trip at a wine tasting in Napa Valley. Funny how professional paths intersect unexpectedly—I didn’t know the Fishers were part of the tasting group until they walked through front door of the home at the vineyard.
Tomorrow’s reunion begins at 8 a.m. when we head to Bimini, where we stay for two nights before heading to Nassau/Paradise Island, Harbor Island/ Eleuthera, Spanish Wells and beyond. It was either that or return to Lake of the Ozarks—where I’ve already been twice this year and was last weekend—in Central Missouri for this weekend’s Big Thunder Marine Cigarette Owners Rendezvous and the Performance Boat Center Powered by Performance Invitational Fun Run.
Sometimes in this job, hard choices have to made.