I got a much-deserved day off of work today; I put in nearly 80 hours
last week at the go-live, including an untimely call on Saturday that
ruined any chance of me getting in the water.
But Sunday was quiet, so I called a local dive shop. They had a 2-tank
boat dive starting at 1pm.
The first dive was my first in almost 2 years, so I was a little rusty.
Also, it’s the first time I’ve ever had to do the “classic”
fall-backwards-off-the-boat entry. Things were a little rough right at
the beginning; a lot of stuff going on at once and trying to remember
that it’s OK to breathe underwater, etc. Once I started descending,
everything was cool.
We dove to about 60′, stayed above the reef. The sandy floor was only
visible in channels; reef covered most of the bottom in a blanket about
10′ thick. The divemaster was feeding the fish, so we spent the dive
surrounded by Yellowtail (made me think of sushi). Most were about 8” –
10” long, good looking school. There were several large grouper hanging
around, too. I counted somewhere around a dozen individuals. The
smallest was ~2′ long and looked to be about 30#. The largest was over
3′ long and about 50#, maybe 60# (Bigger than Brett.) Big fish. Saw a
hawksbill turtle at one point. It was a medium sized one, about 2′
across the shell. These are much smaller than the green turtles in
Hawaii. A Caribbean reef shark swam by about 10 minutes into the dive.
The first time I’ve ever seen a shark without glass. It was about 5′ or
6′ long; it wasn’t looking for us. A small school of jacks came by,
maybe 6. They were dinner-plate sized. Also caught a glimpse of some
huge tarpon out at the edge of vision. I remember them from the VI —
they’re startlingly large and their silver scales often glint at you out
of the corner of your eye. Towards the end of the dive, I saw a small
school of Wahoo tuna, maybe 12” or 15” long. They looked a bit like
barracuda, except with the spiky tuna tail.
I didn’t get a lot of time to look at the little fish, but they’re
surprisingly similar to the ones in Hawaii; the damselfish are different
colors than Hawaiian ones, but they still defend their little burrows in
the coral (damselfish are like 2” long, so it’s kind of cute).
Sea fans. I’d forgotten how gorgeous they are. The coral is very
different from Hawaii. Different colors and also species. They don’t
have staghorn and brain coral and sea fans in Hawaii. It was all very
nostalgic.
40 minutes at 60′ and I was out of air, so a 3 minute safety stop at 15′
and back to the boat.
Caribbean Divers, Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas. 4 divers and a
divemaster.
The captain asked if we wanted to do a shark feeding dive or something
else and nobody jumped at the shark feeding, so the second dive was a
wreck dive. A little boat about the size of our dive boat is sitting
upright on the bottom in about 45′ of water. It’s intact; you can swim
into the (covered) cockpit. A baitball of little teeny fish was clouding
around the wreck. Nice. There were 2 engines and a couple of other
chunks of manmade gear (now reef substrate) scattered around on the
bottom here.
The rest of the dive, I spent looking for shells. I found a couple of
nice shells and a couple of nice pieces of dead coral. The bottom was a
thin layer of sand covering reef with coffee table sized chunks of live
coral coming out of it every 10 yards or so. Some of the chunks were
larger, maybe the size of a small car. In all, the reef was not in great
shape here. I’d prefer to do a dive like that from the shore. In fact,
if I found a place like that on a shore dive, I’d probably skip it the
second trip.The shells were pretty picked-over, too.
A humongous parrot fish dropped in for a look. It was bright blue and
was so big that his nose had grown flat, like a boxer’s. A few large
yellow-and-black fish whose name escapes me. Some very cool 6”
surgeonfish, all black with neon blue piping down the edge of both fins.
The bottom had lots of gobies, little white fish that live in holes in
the bottom. I thought they were garden eels at first, but then I saw one
come all the way out of its burrow. About 3” long, shaped like a pencil,
all white, and when startled, they back down into their holes tail first.
Right before I surfaced, I was watching a goatfish eat. They have 2
“antennae” (I think they’re called barbels or something) coming out of
their chin, normally in photos (or fishmongers’) you see them flat back
against their jaw. But in action, they use them like little probes,
poking in the sand until they feel something, then lunging in to eat it.
It was very cool. I was watching him pretty close up and he was watching
me too, but he kept on eating anyway.
40 minutes at 45′, 3 minute safety stop, 4 divers and a divemaster.
rented BC, regulator, and fins. own mask. 16#. Had some problems with
mask + ponytail. mask was getting shoved up into my septum both dives.
It was distracting. I had to clear it a lot. I think that I could tune
my regulator to give a little less force behind the air and get longer
dive times. I’ll have to chat with the dive shop guy about it when I
take my reg in for service.
The divemasters were pleasant enough, but a little less environmentally
conscious than I’d prefer in someone who makes money off of showing off
beautiful reefs every day. I’d use them again. I wish I knew where some
shore dives were around here.