We were five miles offshore and about 50 feet down, diving on a coral wall in the Bahamas when the sharks made their move. There were 18 of them and only 12 of us and you could see by the clouds of bubbles streaming from our regulators that everyone was breathing hard and fast.

"Keep your arms close to your body," the dive master had said before we'd made our entry from the dive boat. "Sharks can mistake your hands for fish - easy prey," and he'd grinned in the most evil way when he'd said it.

Paul and I had been the last of the group to get in the water since we were preparing our two underwater cameras to record the experience for our latest video project, a series called Exploring Under Sail. While doing our final check of gaskets and gear, we were astonished to see the assistant dive master open a crate of bait fish and stuff his pockets with bleeding chum.

"Sshhh. Don't tell anyone," he said, seeing our eyes widen. "It attracts the sharks. Go ahead. I'll follow."

"Don't follow too closely, thanks!" said Paul and we both leapt in, feeling more apprehensive than before.

It didn't take long for the sharks to smell that gruesome fish and within five minutes they began to appear like silvery apparitions on the watery horizon. We huddled together, hearts pumping, bubbles streaming, terrified, elated, because, after all, this is what we'd come for. Paul and I had encountered sharks many times while diving in the islands from our sailboat Two-Step but on this expedition free-roaming sharks were going to be skillfully (or so we thought) attracted to the area and fed. We knew it would be a great opportunity to get some fabulous footage for our documentary so we had arranged to be included on the dive.

The sharks swam in close, circling and swimming amongst us. They were big. Most of them six to eight feet long and we felt small and vulnerable in their midst. Although these sharks were familiar with the feeding about to take place, they were still wild and unpredictable animals and we had to sign a form releasing the organizers of the expedition from any responsibility should there be an attack. The sharks came so close we could touch them (but we didn't!) and they stared at us with glassy maniacal eyes.

Cameras rolling, we swam along, nerves on edge, trailed by the man-eaters. We reached a large flat sandy area and the dive master directed us to sit on the ocean floor in a large circle. The feeding was about to begin. We could sense the sharks' excitement building as a large crate of bait fish was lowered into the center of our circle from the dive boat overhead. The shark feeder (nice job), who was wearing arm-length chainmail gloves, slowly opened the crate and pulled out chunks of fish with a spear. The sharks went straight for the bait in a pack and devoured it in single gulps. They kicked up the sand in their frenzy and one swam straight into Paul in the confusion. It scraped across his camera but Paul kept the camera rolling and captured the whole thing on video. This footage was used in "Treasured Cays", the pilot episode of Exploring Under Sail. This November it won the Gold Award for Best Sailing and Watersport Documentary at the 1995 Charleston International Film Festival (Charleston, SC)

It has been quite a year. When we wrote to you last Christmas, we were running from Hurricane Gordon on our way south to the Bahamas. We spent an idyllic few months cruising the out islands and working on our film project for Exploring Under Sail which we are co-producing with Peter Rowe Productions. It was great to be back in the Bahamas sailing the tropical blue waters and diving on the pristine reefs after two snowy winters in Canada. Paul hadn't lost his touch for catching fish, lobster and conch and we had numerous seafood feasts.

At Christmas, a major storm (the Bahamians call them 'northers') blew through and we safely rode out the hurricane force winds and pounding rain at anchor at Little Bell Island in the Exumas. Meanwhile, in Nassau, a barge broke loose and swept through the crowded anchorage, sinking and dismasting sailboats in its path. John Bickerstaff on "Sea Spell" captured it on video and we included it in our "Treasured Cays" episode. It's heart-pounding footage!

Paul's parents, John and Cynthia, came aboard for a 2-week visit in January. Marcus Mitchell of Sampson Cay met them in Nassau with his seaplane and flew them to the remote anchorage where we were filming. What an arrival! Marcus landed right beside the boat. John and Cynthia helped us with our project during their stay and were very good sports - we marooned them with the camera several times to get some difficult shots of Two-Step under sail. At one point they were balanced on the wing of a plane wreck, another time we stranded them on a rock with the tide rising, and several times they got left on lonely beaches growing cold as the sun got lower on the horizon!

At the end of their visit we sailed them across the Yellow Banks back to Nassau where they got on the plane for Toronto - and Sheryl's brother Kevin and his girlfriend got off! Kevin and Cristina had very little vacation time and had flown down for the weekend. The shortage of time did not deter them. They wanted to do it all - casinos, sailing, deserted anchorages, snorkelling, catch a lobster. We complied and managed to pack it all in before they flew back to Toronto 3 days later. They announced their engagement when they got home. (Cruising can do that to you.) They were married on October 14th, 1995, the same weekend as our 10th wedding anniversary. Paul and I were the M.C.'s.

Paul and I have become very busy with speaking engagements lately which we enjoy immensely. Since returning to Canada after our three-year voyage around the Atlantic Ocean (1989-1992) we have been producing multimedia shows (slides and video set to music with live commentary) and touring the province with them. We meet so many great people and quickly forget about the snow since we're talking about a subject we love - sailing! If you are looking for a guest speaker for your yacht club or boating association event, give us a call! (705) 484-0061, Fax (705) 484-1098, E-mail: shard@interhop.net

We ended our winter cruise of the Bahamas in early February to return home to tour our 1995 show, Two-Step Through the Caribbean, and to edit the footage we had shot for Exploring Under Sail. We left the Bahamas for Florida on February 7, racing a front which hit just as we entered the inlet at West Palm Beach. Four days later, Two-Step was hauled out at Indiantown Marina on the Okeechobee Waterway and we were driving north. We contacted a drive-away service who had a brand new Lexus 400 they needed driven to Buffalo so we drove home in style, not to mention comfort! It was 87F when we left Florida and when we got to Buffalo there was a blizzard! We felt like we went through all the seasons in three days! Paul's dad met us in Buffalo and we transferred all our boxes and baggage into his car for the final leg home. Our show tour went well and we gave 22 presentations before spring launch.

In March, Shard Multimedia moved into a new office in Port Credit with our executive producer Peter Rowe to edit the video footage we had taken in the Bahamas and to market the series. We also worked with Peter on a multimedia CD-ROM called "Adventure USA", a sequel to the prizewinning CD-ROM, "Adventure Canada". Sheryl helped with initial research and Paul acted as software consultant throughout the project. Peter wrote and edited 50 mini-movies and 150 scripted slides about destinations in the U.S. using a fully-loaded PowerMac. This was provided by the developers, Virtual Reality Systems, in Vancouver, B.C. "Adventure USA" will be in the stores sometime this winter.

In June, Peter was asked by Norstar Entertainment to direct a storm-at-sea scene for a feature film called Salt Water Moose starring Timothy Dalton (the former James Bond) and Lolita Davidovich (who starred with Paul Newman in Blaze). Peter asked us to work with him on the film and Paul was flown to Ottawa to document the location on video for the producers. When it came time to film the scene with the actors, we both worked as support divers and boat wranglers in the wave tank at the National Research Council in Ottawa for the week's shoot. Sheryl was also hired as a stunt double for Lolita (also a redhead) and had to dive off a boat, do all Lolita's underwater scenes including grabbing an unconscious Timothy Dalton (she didn't mind doing retakes) and swimming through enormous waves wearing a raincoat and heavy rubber boots. Thank you to stunt coordinator Alison Read for her guidance.

In September, we took a break and returned to Florida to do some preparation work on Two-Step for her upcoming winter cruise (Feb'96). We only had a week off and it was very hot - it cooled down to a sticky 84ºF at night!

Back in Mississauga, our project for the fall was to complete our new book, Sail Away! A Guide to Outfitting and Provisioning Your Boat for Cruising. We were encouraged to write this book by people attending our seminars and presentations who wanted more information on how to prepare for long-distance voyaging. Using our experiences and the advice of other bluewater cruisers, our book is an easy-to-read reference manual for anyone planning a cruise. It includes checklists, tables and worksheets to help you research destinations, budget for your trip and equip you boat for voyaging. The lists from the book are also available on computer disk in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Write and WordPerfect word processing documents so you can customize them on your IBM-PC and create your own yacht inventory manual. There are lots of anecdotes about our travels in the book as well. It is published by Pelagic Press.

Some of you may remember the one-hour documentary we made with Rogers Community 10 about our Atlantic voyage entitled Call of the Ocean. It has been bought by The Discovery Channel and is now an episode in Discovery's Search for Adventure series. Hope you get a chance to see it.

It really has been a wonderful year for us. We are living our dream of working together on creative projects that allow us to cruise for a little while each year. Our families are close by and we are all looking forward to a prosperous year ahead.

All the best to you and yours for a Happy Holiday and Joyous New Year!