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Posts Tagged ‘moray eels’
Dinner time!
With approximately 700 islands, over 2,500 cays, and 100,000 square miles of ocean, the Bahamas collectively comprise a massive scuba paradise. Grand Bahama Island, long one of the hubs of Bahamian tourism, is currently being rediscovered by divers and developers alike. Commerce and tourism has always centered on Freeport, the second-largest city in the Bahamas. But in the past few years, West End, Grand Bahama, is getting significant attention as well. Still, Freeport remains the home of most of the dive activity, and a true jewel in the crown of Bahamian diving.
Diving Grand Bahama is a lesson in diversity, from outrageous walls to high-octane animal encounters, shallow- to medium-depth reefs, excellent wrecks and even freshwater caverns. There is also an array of specialty dive programs like shark feeding dives, dolphin dives, diving with rebreathers, and riding underwater scooters. While the walls bordering the island’s south coast are accessible to casual divers, depths can exceed recreational limits. Most diving is done on shallow- to medium-depth reefs, where several excellent wrecks are found. Winter water temps drop to the 70s, while summer temps peak in the high 80s. The seas are calm year-round, except during winter storms. Visibility averages 80 to 100 feet. Some of the dive highlights around Grand Bahama Island include:
Cave Diving – The expansive Lucayan cavern system honeycombs Grand Bahama and offers several points of access at both inland and oceanic blue holes. Advanced divers can explore spectacular sites such as Ben’s Cavern, a sinkhole located in the Lucayan Caves National Park. Here stalactites and stalagmites provide dramatic underwater scenery while migratory bats steal the show topside. Other caverns to explore include, Owl’s Hole and Mermaids Lair.
Shark diving/Shark feeding – In scuba diving circles, the Bahamas are pretty well known for their sharks. Divers commonly see black tips, white tips, grey reef, and nurse sharks on dives. The only way to pack more of them into a dive is to feed them, which is what several companies have started offering in the Bahamas. Venture to a depth of 50 feet where instructors in protective chain mail lure dozens of sharks into close range with tasty tidbits.
Dolphin experiences – A company called UNEXSO offers “The Dolphin Experience,” the chance to scuba dive with one or more of its resident dolphins out in the open ocean. The company houses 16 bottlenose dolphins maintained in an enclosure at Sanctuary Bay, 10 of which have been born in captivity. If wild dolphins are more of your thing, White Sand Ridge north of West End, Grand Bahama won’t disappoint. Here, bottlenose dolphins are commonly seen rooting around in the shallow sand bank, and a resident pod of spotted dolphins is frequently seen.
Theo’s Wreck – Purposefully sunk in 1982 to create an artificial reef, Theo’s Wreck is located just east of Xanadu Beach. The wreck is about 230 feet long and rests on a flat sandy patch of the ocean floor on its port side, between the deep reef and the drop-off at a depth of about 101 feet. Over the past two decades the structure has become a haven for a mass of marine life. The wreck is intact and is covered in a blanket of yellow and orange cup corals and pink and red sponges, as well as colorful algae. The bow anchor chain in particular has splendid gorgonian sea fans. The shaded part of the hull is completely smothered in orange false gorgonians. Sea life found here includes barracuda, parrotfish, angelfish, snappers and moray eels. At the nearby reef drop-off, divers are likely to find larger fish and turtles.
The cruise dock in Belize did not exude “jungle paradise” as I expected. Before the cruise the thought of Belize conjured up visions of toucans, jaguars, and fierce Inca men with rippling muscles. Instead, the dock was full of concrete, marine shipping box piles, and skinny men running around like ants trying to secure our boat. I hoped the experience would improve from there.
The divers from our cruise were loaded onto a minibus so that we could drive to the designated dive shop. There were ten of us in total. The rest of the divers appeared normal, except for three guys who looked like Navy Seals. They were tall, well-muscled men with crew cuts and an entire store worth of scuba gear tucked into enormous black duffle bags. They looked like they were going to dive the deep Titanic rather than the shallow Belize shores. Their gear listed our minibus to the left side during the entire ride to the dive shop.
Again we signed our life away in accident waiver forms when we arrived at the dive shop. I have always wondered why shops require divers to perform this task. The pens never work because the salt air instantly corrodes them. The counters are always wet so the minute one puts the paper down to sign it, it turns into a squishy mess. And, finally, there is never anyplace in a dive shop that is well organized enough to store something like the thousands of waiver papers a shop would collect in a year. I am sure there are parrot cages all over the globe that are lined with these liability releases.
We boarded the dive boat and set up our gear. I knew the divemasters were assessing our skills based on how our knowledge of the hoses, gauges and straps that are involved in a scuba setup. I suspected they might insist I wear water wings after I tried to set up my tank backwards. Twice. I finally got my gear set up correctly, and then contorted myself into my wetsuit, an activity I perform as graceful as a sailor swearing.
The divemaster took us on a whirlwind underwater tour of Terraces Reef, patiently pointing out large sea life like turtles and small creatures like decorator crabs. I acted like paparazzi at each stop, snapping picture after picture of starlet starfish with my camera. I learned when developing my pictures from Bora Bora that fish swim, frequently out of focus or out of the frame altogether. By looking at my pictures, one would assume Bora Bora had a lot of empty water. I had prepared to practice my underwater photography skills more on this trip.
I had not prepared for the new and fascinating sea life that revealed itself to us on this trip. Most notably were the green moray eels anywhere from five to ten feet in length. Morays have dorsal fins that extend evenly from their head all the way to their tail and very large teeth, making them look like angry green vipers with full body mohawks. I saw moray eels in French Polynesia, but they all hid in the reef with only their faces and fierce-looking mouths exposed.
In Belize the Morays were free-swimming, something that most types of eels usually do only at night. These long, green ribbons of muscle undulated through the water like Cruella De Vil’s feather boa. Because of their notoriously poor vision, morays are not known for biting humans offensively, usually reserving this defensive tactic for when a diver’s hand or foot is put mistakenly into their hole in the reef. Seeing the full length and body power behind the large teeth as they cruised around the reef gave me the creeps; their full exposure expanded their menace exponentially. Although the two dives were fascinating, I was glad to end my time with those particular reef residents.