Human look bucket, plastic look bucket

Fun times today! After stuffing my face for a while, and narrowly avoiding a nap with a cup of coffee, I decided to go off and take HDR photos of the fort with my DSLR. I took the dinghy there and walked around for a while, then I headed back to the boat. After dawdling for another hour I went to my boat neighbor’s (Insert Name Here) and we hopped on his dinghy to go look for this wreck and good snorkeling as indicated on the map. We went over there, not quite a mile away, and neither of us having a look bucket I stuck my head in the water while he motored us along.  Note to self, build a look bucket!

Anyway, the wreck was in roughly 30’ of water which was all but invisible. The shoal neighboring the wreck was much of the same finger coral graveyard. There were a few large coral heads as well as a few sea fans, but overall there wasn’t much worth getting wet about, so after about 30 minutes we called off the search and headed back to the boats, where I said thanks and bye.

I went back to my boat, only now realizing that I forgot to try fishing, but the sun is setting L. Anyway I spent some time poring over the charts and planning my next hop. I was almost relishing the though of an offshore hop into the gulf stream, but I realized that I’ll have more fun if I motor 6 hours inshore to the Marquesas and go exploring for lobsters there, then motor the next day to an anchorage at Big Pine key. I then got to thinking that I wish I had a look bucket.

For those that don’t know, a look bucket is a way to look underneath the water from the relative safety of your dinghy, without getting wet! Most people make their own, but as with all things there are expensive commercially available alternatives. Being from lands of muddy waters, I didn’t even think what a cool device this would be, so I didn’t bring one with.

However, (triumphant drumroll) just as a chef will use ingredients on hand to concoct a delicacy, I keep the boat stocked will many sort of sundries for no better reason than this. Case in point, for no better reason than my previous boat came with a 10”x20”x1/16” piece of plexiglass and I wasn’t going to sell it with that boat, I dutifully moved it over to this boat and stored it in one of the lockers when I built it. I also naturally have multiple buckets, my beloved “grey sticky stuff” butyl tape, and plenty of stainless hardware. A few minutes with my jigsaw running off the inverter, pop a few holes and I have a look bucket!

Tomorrow I’m thinking of taking the dinghy to Loggerhead point about 3 miles away and going snorkeling there. I will of course take my newly constructed look bucket with me to test it out.