Mermaid Reef and Google Earth

Today we hopped into the dink and took it outside Marsh Harbour and then east to Mermaid Reef. It's pretty much man made of concrete but it was quite scenic since much of it has growth on it.

We were the second dink in to the mooring balls they have there. The folks on that dink were throwing food into the water and looking at the fish with a joint compound bucket that had a pane of lexan in the bottom. (Note to self: next time don't forget yours when you come back south) As a result the fish were everywhere around us! The parrots were royal blue and pink. Very bright. There were Nassau groupers everywhere and there was a huge Hog Snapper. Various other fish like grunts yellow tails and angel fish came out and looked us over. It was quite a bit of fun. They were all swimming around us expecting more food.

On to Goggle Earth;

Once you have google earth installed, you can ride along if you like by 'playing a tour'. Double click on the http://home.roadrunner.com/~danmapes/Southbound2.kmz (Southbound data continued on the blog start up page) and when google earth starts up, you should see a panel on the left with a heading of places. Within this should be a temporary places tab and under it, will be Northbound + Southbound2. Under this is Tracks. To see them merely check the boxes. If "Tracks" has a minus sign then change it to plus. Then check Tracks and all the trips under it should have a check mark and become visable. Highlight one of the tracks with a left click, leaving the check present.
Next move up to 'Tools" on the main tool bar and select it to open a window with options. The one you want is "Play Tours". Click on this and enjoy the show.
The options underneath "Play Tours" offers you the ability to speed it up (recommended) and change the angle at which the views proceed. Pretty slick stuff.