We Found an Abandoned Shipwreck in the Bahamas

I just landed in Florida last night, and this morning we were flying on a seaplane about 50 miles, 25 minute flight, into a different country. Bahamas is pretty much known as one of the most touristy places in the world, but I think we could do our best to, kind of in a filmmaking way, find what else is out there and see what's under the surface, because there's always more than what meets the eye. So that's the plan. I'm here with a Sam. Great kid. Friend of a friend. So that's the plan. We're going to stay safe, and we're going to see what we can find for the next two days. We tied up like a full-on boat, and we just taxied on the water onto this dock. Kind of a crazy experience. The deal is we're here for two days, me and Sam and Bimini, and the goal is to hopefully find some local culture and just find some cool spots. Oh, interesting. What kind of laws, is there a crime out here or no? Not in Bimini. What do you do for fun out here? Well, you get creative. Check it out. Apparently, some of the best swordfish in the world are in these waters, and Ernest Hemingway actually lived here for a while. I got fun facts all over me, dude. So we met this guy, Dre. He's a local here, and he's kind enough to let us document his fishing process. We're going to go get some crabs tonight before sunset, and hopefully we'll learn some things and kind of see what life is like here in the Bahamas. I got into flatskiding from my old man. I've been doing it since I was 12. This is my life, and I wouldn't do anything else. I'm very grateful for this boat because it's perfectly suited for the island and all the shallow areas. This boat can run in probably four inches of water easily. Flats fishing, to be a guide, is like a college course. You need at least four years to learn your area, learn your boat, learn your waters, learn your fish especially, because every fish everywhere else acts differently. Right now we're going for some live blue crabs, some quarters, and hopefully we can use those to catch maybe some permit. While we're out here, I'm going to be looking for bonefish at the same time, maybe try to get one on fly, because that's also pretty fun too. There's some bonefish right here, so we're going to go up this way and come down so I can cast downwind at them. Hopefully I don't spook them. That's a bonefish. Very spooky fish. They'll freak out for pretty much no reason. Some people don't understand how hard it actually is coming out here, running up and down, actually trying to find these crabs. Sometimes you can get ten a day, sometimes you get five a day, sometimes you find none. I'm flying the drone at the moment, and this landscape is like so alien and different. It's very cool to see. It seems like Dre is very tapped in with this, and he's lived here all his life, grown up here fishing, and it's nice that he's letting me and Sam document it. Tie a hook on, throw a crab on, launch it at the permit. Who usually wins this battle? The angler. They fight for a pretty long time, and it's pretty much a minute per pound, so if this permit's 15 pounds, this fight should last 15 minutes. Let me know when you're ready to take over. It's a big fish, so you've got to fight him like a big fish. Right hand here. Right hand here? Yeah. Just hold him. Don't do anything special yet. Right, right, right, right, right. Give me it, give me it, give me it. That's the permit. All right. And that's it. Thank you. Good job. Thank you. Just got off the boat with Dre. That was a super sick experience. He showed us a little bit about the fishing culture here in Bimini, and he's kind of like the fishing legend around here. I would go as far as to say that. He seems like he knows his stuff really well, and he's been doing this for 24 years here, and we only have one more day in Bimini to learn more about the fishing culture here Tomorrow is our last day, and also only our second day. So the plan is, now that we're friends with Dre, is to go out and check out some other stuff around the area, and he's going to take us on his boat to go check out an old shipwreck and some other cool relics around the area, because there's a lot more than what meets the eye to this place. We're going to go check it out. So we're here with Chaser Water, and they're helping support this mission to the Bahamas. Essentially Chaser Water is a water brand. Chaser Water sources their minerals from the ocean, and they put it in this water to give you an extra boost of hydration from other minerals that you wouldn't get otherwise just from drinking normal water. So on a mission like this to the Bahamas, we're in the sun all day, we're filming non-stop, we're on the go, we're traveling. You genuinely have to stay hydrated, and I honestly am so stoked to be supporting this brand because they support sustainability, they support the ocean, and they keep you hydrated on missions like this. You need electrolytes, you need these extra minerals to actually stay boosted throughout the day and keep your energy up. Chaser Water, so excited to be supported by you guys, and we're excited to have you along with the mission because we're going to need it. We are at the Esesapona. It's a 216 foot boat made entirely of concrete and steel. Dude, it's like 10 ladders at once. What do we think? It's sketchy stepping around all in a rush. Oh, watch out for that thing. Get your foot as high as you can. I had my foot on that top ledge, so I'm bent as hell. I gotta go get this sign for Dre too. He doesn't want the yachts promoting their flag on here. Billy's going to go route two and take the sketchy ladder, but I think he'll get that if he puts his mind to it. Okay, Billy's taking the flag back to Dre, and I'm going to find a way to get to the top of the boat so that we can jump off. Time to get a nice gainer in to start the day. We've got this little ladder thing we can work with. How is it up there? The rocks are just like crumbling underneath your feet as you're like jumping off. It ran aground 1926. I know the U.S. Air Force used it as target practice. There are bullet holes from the .50 cals from the P-51s all over the side of it. If you scuba dive long enough and you look on the bottom, you can find old .50 cal bullets. And boats aren't made out of concrete anymore, are they? No, that was a terrible idea. So this is what happens when you make a boat out of concrete. That's actually insane to think about. The Bahamas is a collection of over 700 islands and 2,000 kays. But the thing is, there's only about 30 of them that are inhabited by people. Because it's about 50 miles from the U.S., tourism is like the backbone of this place. You can really see it everywhere. There's one side of the island that is completely resort life and developments. And there's another side that you can tell is the local areas, and it's a complete different feel. But like anywhere shaped by tourism, there's layers if you look a little bit deeper. The idea is simple. Come to a place that's being sold as paradise and see if we can actually see what's underneath it. We're at the bust of Martin Luther King. This is where he came to write his speech three days before he died. So that I have a dream speech he wrote right here, he asked Ansel Saunders, who passed away just recently, to take him to a quiet place so he can think. This is where he brought him. The mangroves are an ecosystem of roots and trees that burrow into the ground. Around us right now is a bunch of red mangroves. You can tell by the red roots that burrow out and come up. So this habitat is more or less so for birds and fish and all kinds of other creatures. One of the main jobs of mangroves, other than a nursery, is to protect the island from storms, hurricanes, flooding. They're super important to every Caribbean island, no matter where they are. And honestly, they're the most vital resource to any part of the Bahamas. They feed us, they shelter us, they're just that important and they should never be touched. Because of development, we are under threat of things like a gulf course and the resort and our government selling us out. To build a gulf course, you're going to have to destroy all the mangroves around it. The preservatives, the runoffs from the gulf course would kill the habitat. I mean, there are so many small species of fish that when they get bigger, they go off into the ocean. Every animal that lives in the mangroves will be affected by the gulf course. These things are very important to our livelihoods. Bimini is not that big, so we need as much protection as we can get, especially for hurricanes. So even in our petition, we have about, I think, 6,000 signed, but any amount of support would be helpful. Literally just getting the word out there to fight against the developers and them trying to destroy our home and take it over from us. The petition is attached to my Instagram handle, and then there's three pinned videos on my Instagram that you can share that has more depth and insight on everything that's going on. So I'm back in the United States now, and it's been some time to reflect on that Bahamas trip. 25 minutes from Florida, and that felt like a completely different world. Sam and I came to Bimini originally for the blue water, the shipwrecks, like all of this kind of filmmaking gold that you see, and you're like, I want to get that shot. I want to see that. And I feel like it's easy to fall into that mentality when you go somewhere, and it was a good reminder for me and Sam to actually realize what kind of impact tourism can have on an island this small. Yeah, I thought it was really interesting. Me and Sam talked about it a bit, and it's like, it's a double-edged sword. You are a tourist yourself, but you also want the best for the environment. You want the best for the locals. It's just good to keep it in mind, and good to think about how you can make a difference, how you can do better. Check out the petition. It takes like two seconds to sign, and you can make a huge difference, save Bimini. Dre would appreciate it. We would appreciate it. The environment would appreciate it. Also, thank you Chaser Water and Tropic Ocean Airways for allowing us to tell this story, for funding it. With this kind of thing, you have to stay open and be ready to change and pivot. We came for one thing, and we left telling a different kind of story. A 20-minute flight from the mainland U.S. Sometimes you really don't have to go far to find this kind of thing. You just have to look a little bit closer. And even in your own backyard, there's always more beneath the surface. Thank you guys for watching.