Bahamas Out Island Press Releases

ALICE TOWN , Bimini – Aug. 30, 2010 – What’s in a boat name?

Hemmingway tackled giant blue marlin on his “Pilar”. Quint pitted his “ Orca” against the legendary great white shark, JAWS, and Columbus had three – the “Nina” the “Pinta” and the “Santa Maria”. By the way, a little known fact is the “Pinta” was the fastest of his three.

It is a serious task, for sure, to name a boat - as it tells of her spirit, and sometimes even her destiny. It’s an even harder job to come up with something unique, as there surely are many boat names as there are fish in the ocean.

Guy Harvey and Neal Watson, who have recently joined forces to form Neal Watson’s Dive Bimini, have just purchased a new 60-foot dive boat, and working hard to open the operation in October.

Harvey and Watson have put out a call to have the dive public name the boat. They’re looking for a boat name – a name that divers from around the world will immediately recognize and come to symbolize the most famed dive boat in all of the Bahamas.

So true to the Guy Harvey Outpost sporting nature, the organization is putting a little competition together to come up with the name of the new boat. It’s a two-part challenge:

First, send your suggested names by posting it to www.biggameclubbimini.com (deadline is October 1, 2010). Send as many as you can think of. There are no rules on the names submitted, although the Guy Harvey Outpost team is going to favor ones that are clever, entertaining, easy to pronounce and not too long.

Then a group of at Guy Harvey Outpost, including Guy and Neal, will rally up and review the “keepers”, from which they will create a shortlist of four names. These four names will then be posted to our Guy Harvey and Outpost Facebook pages and be put to a vote by our fans.

The name with the most votes wins and becomes the new name of our dive boat. And in addition to receiving a personal “high five” letter of thanks from Guy and Neal, the winner will receive a complimentary 2 night stay at the resort and include a two tank dive on “their” dive boat. Sure, there’s some fine print, but nothing that should stand in the way of entering and having some fun — remember, this is how a legend begins!

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About Neal Watson

A Fort Lauderdale, Florida resident and local business owner for over twenty years, Watson has been involved in owning and operating hotels, establishing a chain of dive operations, working in the treasure salvage business, stunt coordinator for the movie and TV industry, owned and operated an airline charter company and established a chain of Neal Watson’s Undersea Adventure franchise dive operations in the Bahamas and Caribbean.

In 1985 Watson moved to Fort Lauderdale from Bimini and established Neal Watson’s Undersea Adventures as a Florida Corporation. Shortly thereafter he started USA Travel Network, Inc., which is an ARC accredited tour company specializing in diving and adventure sports travel.

Watson currently serves on the Board of Directors of DEMA (Dive Equipment & Marketing Association), which is the World Trade Association for the diving industry; President of the Bahamas Diving Association and Chair of the Bahamas Dive Marketing Committee, which is responsible for recommending budget expenditures for the Bahamas Ministry Tourism for the Bahamas Government Dive Market Promotions.

Personal achievements include breaking the World’s Scuba Depth Record, diving 437 feet on compressed air as well as breaking the World’s Underwater Distance Record by swimming 66 miles underwater, non-stop without surfacing.

About Bimini Big Game Club, a Guy Harvey Outpost Resort and Marina

Founded as a dinner club in 1936 in Alice Town, the island’s cultural hub, by Nassau entrepreneur and bon-vivant, Neville Stuart, the Big Game Club has over the last 74 years hosted world-class fishermen, major tournaments, international celebrities and tens of thousands guests looking to bask in the unique “Islands in the Stream” mantra made famous by author Ernest Hemingway who fished and lived in Bimini in the mid 1930s.

Today, the Big Game Club’s Outpost concept is designed to take the resort beyond that of a “fishing lodge (though admittedly a majority of visitors will be there for the world class fishing) to create an eco-destination attracting both fishing and diving enthusiasts while focusing on adventure travel, sustainable tourism and marine conservation.

The Big Game Club, which is located on the main navigation channel in Bimini Bay, currently features a 51-room resort and a 75-slip marina capable of accommodating boats up to 145 linear feet. By Spring 2011, a full service fuel dock will be operational.

There are Phase II plans that will include a Guy Harvey Theater, guest lecture series and interactive sessions with Dr. Harvey and the Guy Harvey Research Institute at NOVA Southeastern Oceanographic Center and day trips to the Bimini Biological Field Station’s world-famous shark lab.