Bonefish & breathtaking beauty
Bonefish & breathtaking beauty

LONG ISLAND, BAHAMAS — It was the one day I had forgotten my rain gear, and on this day I needed it.

Falling first as sprinkles and progressing into a genuine tropical storm, the rain was now overwhelming the bilge pump of the skiff in which I was standing.

With water rising, my guide, Dwayne Knowles, grabbed a plastic cup from the console and began bailing the vessel.

Strangely optimistic, and grinning, he yelled so as to be heard over the roar of the rainfall: "Could be worse, mon…you could be at work!” he said. He pronounced it as woik, and that made me laugh.

Completely drenched and cold, I alternated between assisting Dwayne and jumping up and down on the bow just to generate body heat. Occasionally, lighting would crackle and explode, causing us to hit the deck, duck our heads.

Always, Dwayne would emerge first, an ornery grin on his face and saying, "That was a close one, mon!”

We were 40 minutes from the lodge, five from the blue water of the open ocean, but all I could see were the gray curtains of clouds and rain all around us, the millions of tiny water droplets pelting the surface of the bonefish flat.

And yet Dwayne continued to insist that the rain would soon move off.

"I see a clearing, mon. Rain won't last much long-uh.”

I was pretty sure he was grinning as he said this, but a short while later, Dwayne seemed pretty wise.

An hour after the rain had ended, a 9-weight fly rod in hand and battling a 30-pound blacktip shark, I looked up to see a trio of waterspouts in the distance.

They danced, receded and eventually dissipated on the horizon as a beam of sunlight filtered through an aperture in the clouds, illuminating and enhancing the blue water around us.

Here, at Deadman's Cay, off Long Island, in the far southern Bahamas, I realized that I had never felt more alive. But I'm not the first to have been charmed by this scenic, pastoral island and the blue waters surrounding it.

So enamored was the explorer that he called Long Island "the most beautiful island in the world,” naming it "Fernandina” after his mentor in Spain.

It may well be.

Bisected by the Tropic of Cancer, Long Island spans some 60 miles in length, while measuring no more than four miles at its widest point.

Though its Caribbean shoreline consists of seemingly endless miles of white sand flats and calm waters, the island's eastern side features rugged hills and dramatic bluffs overlooking quiet bays, deserted beaches and the blue Atlantic.

In one such bay, near the settlement of Dean's, you'll find the world's deepest blue hole.

This 663-foot cavern, as well as the surrounding waters and reefs, appeal to SCUBA divers and snorklers, while the island itself is quaint, quiet, and ideal for biking and birding.

Leaving the lodge each morning, Dwayne would run the skiff across a large deserted bay and into the backcountry.

There, following the languid channels, he used his intricate knowledge of this tropical wilderness to guide us past small, unnamed cays and desolate shorelines of white sand and mangrove jungle.

As the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, the water's transformation of color became obvious.

Each bend produced a new and deeper shade of green or blue. Watching fish scoot away from the oncoming skiff, we entered a funnel of sheer limestone bluffs on either shoreline.

At this point, the bottom fell away, turning the water from emerald to indigo.

And on the horizon ahead we could see yet another progression of blue, deeper and darker, with the pelagic species of marlin and wahoo and tunas lurking just beyond in the open sea.

All week he had talked about this place – a simple coral formation, the size of a school bus, sticking up out of the shallow water, and nothing else around for as far as the eyes can see. And he was right.

He told me that on his last visit here, he had to leave because there were too many sharks. On the day he took me to Turtle Rock, there were no sharks, but lots of barracudas, and bonefish.

After catching two or three bones, I walked back to the boat, deposited my fly rod and picked up my camera. The scenery here was just too unbelievable to ignore.

Turtle Rock is genuinely remote and wild. I needed only to look over at the school of bonefish to remind myself of this.

The bones were surrounded by a pack of hungry barracudas, which were taking turns streaking through the school, teeth cutting, their flanks silver blurs of flashing muscle.

"Cudas like de bones, mon,” said Dwayne.

Overhead, the gulls (the laughing birds, as Dwayne calls them) floated on the warm, oceanic thermals, laughing their independence and freedom.

From Turtle Rock, on which I was standing, collecting images, I could see a school of needlefish a few feet away at the base of the coral, then a bottom of olive turtle grass.

Beyond this, the clear water illuminated beige, pink, orange, and ochre, over which the bonefish – so perfectly camouflaged – swam.

This progression continued all the way to the horizon, in every direction, all around me.

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