Boats, Planes & Golf Buggies

After a night in the Bahamian capital Nassau, I embarked on the last leg of my journey and arrived on the island of Bimini.With the airstrip on the South island, I took a ferry for the short trip to the North Island, where I was warmly greeted by my island envoy Ashley Saunders. Ashley has been helping me over the last few months to try and get a feel for the island and its potential stories, so it was great to finally meet him, and give gifts of Honey and Half Groats.

I guess I should explain. The Honey is from Gill Sentinella, the beekeeper that featured in ‘For the Bees‘ that won me a place on this adventure, and the Half Groat is a Henry VIII Canterbury Mint coin, that was given to me by my mum as a gift for Ashley (My Nan gave it to my Mum years ago, and as Ashley has a museum that features 16th & 17th Century artifacts, she said it would bring me/us good luck)

So having dumped my bags at Dolphin House (my home for the next 13 days), we immediately embarked on a golf buggy trip to get a feel for the geography, as well as meet some of the local characters. Everyone is very friendly… so much so, i quickly realised it’s common practise to wave at strangers as if we’re old friends, and in the first few hours in absorbing some Bimini culture, I met some fantastically charismatic individuals.

For this film challenge, it’s crucial for me to spend enough time finding characters that can drive my short doc, so I’ll spend the first half of my stay casting for this role. It’s an interesting challenge, as with all good documentary films, you need to find light and shade in terms of story, but in this case (funded by the Bahamas Tourist Board) it will be a case of carefully negotiating the darker elements to make sure they will be happy. This is my first challenge.

The second challenge will be getting used to the camera – I’m missing my Sony already. I don’t want to knock the Canon, as it’s a good camera for its price bracket, but a number of features are missing that I’ve sadly become used to – Going back to lens rings that spin instead of stop, tapes (huh?), lower res viewfinder etc – all make for a much slower operation, and I need to get that speed up quickly. I tend to shoot as observationally as I can, and much of the success of that is due to the reaction to events and situations. At the moment, by the time i’ve framed and focussed, I fear the magic moments will have passed.

Aaanyway… Time for bed… More photos to come, and maybe even a few video logs…?

Thanks for reading

Jan