Thurs. May 17th:
This day was some of the best diving yet. We left West Bay around a corner to the next site. A place called Hocus Pocus. This dive was special to me as it was my 100th dive. It was a deeper dive with lots of life forms around. A great dive. This dive was 83’ for 38 min. We rested & had a snack then dove the site again. This time we saw iridescent blue parrotfish, a reef shark & an adult lionfish hiding under a crevasse. Lionfish are not native to the Atlantic or the Caribbean. They were aquarium pets that were turned loose. Without any natural predators, their numbers have been growing over the last few years. While beautiful, their long spines are highly poisonous. It still, was kind of exciting to see one of these though. This dive was 90’ for 32 min. After these dives we moved on a short distance to another mooring. This site was called Missing Link. There is an abandoned anchor chain (with supposedly an anchor at a depth of about 250’
stretched over the wall portion of the reef. We went exploring this portion of the reef & saw Queen Triggerfish & Queen Angelfish. This dive was 83’ for 36 min. We dove the spot again late in the afternoon. Mandi was tired & the weather decided to turn nasty again so decided not to dive this one. I wound up tagging along with Terry & Ty. On this dive we dove a part that had a lot of what looked like dead coral. With some live coral around. A first there didn’t seem to be much to look at, but as we went around we saw several blue parrotfish, a juvenile lionfish, a porcupine fish & queen triggers. This dive was 39’ for 65 min. After a discussion at supper, it was decided that we would only do 1 early morning dive on Fri. so that we could get back into port at Georgetown before low tide. That night we did a night dive on Missing Link. Mandi decided to dive again, so we looked around. We saw numerous parrotfish sleeping. It is recommended to not disturb them. The fish make themselves a mucus envelope to hide their scent from predators. If disturbed the parrotfish cannot make another envelope & will likely be eaten. We saw the juvenile lionfish again & also saw a large crab, shrimp & a tailless stingray. It was a good dive but we were both starting to get chilled. This dive was 42’ for 52 minutes. So we came up to our last warm towel & hot chocolate. To me, this was the best part of the entire trip & made the night dives worth it. We stayed up late chatting.
Fri. May 18th:
I woke up at 6:00am for a 7:00am dive. During the night we moved back to Long Island. This site is called Shark Reef. It is a site that a local resort uses for shark feeding dives for its guests. Explorer Ventures do not feed or in any way interfere with the animals, but know that there will be sharks there. I got lots of good photos of the reef sharks. Mandi wanted to sleep in so I dove with the cook, Zack. After being on the sand flats for a while we went to a nearby reef. The sharks followed us (hoping for something). Soon we had 6- 8 good, sized reef sharks circling us. They kept pushing to see how close they could get. After a while, it got a little creepy & we made our way back to the boat with sharks in tow. This last dive was 34’ for 56min. After everyone was out, we started to make our way back to port. We disassembled our gear & took it up to the sun deck up top to dry. It looked like a dive shop with wet suits, BCD’s, Regulators, Booties, fins & such hanging & laying around everywhere. We had to scramble to pull he stuff under the canopy during a rainstorm. Mandi & I took turns in the cabin packing. We had to have our gear on the dive deck by morning. That evening most of us decided to go to the resort on Stocking Island. The young man we shared the cab with when we got to Georgetown, was the one who came to pick us up. We had some drinks & then dinner at the resort. We went back to the boat about 10:00. I was wiped out & went to bed. Mandi went to a local bar with some of the others. We got up at 5:00 am to get ready to catch the taxi to the airport. In our group leaving early was Terry & TY, Fred & Simon & Mandi & myself. The others had later flights. We flew out of Georgetown to Nassau at about 7:30. We arrived in Nassau about 8:30 & then had a 6½ hr layover. How boring. We finally flew out of Nassau at 2:50pm. After a 2 ½ hr flight, we landed in Cincinnati (actually it was northern KY). After another 2hr layover we flew out of Cincinnati for a 15 min. flight to Louisville. There Mandi & I parted ways & Shawn picked me up & took me to my car, which was parked at his parent- in- laws. After visiting for a few minutes I made my way back home. At 10:15 I arrived at mom & dad’s & picked up the pooch (there was much ado with her escaping several times from a 10’X 10” pen I had for her). I got home & reality finally began to set back in. I would highly recommend this company & even this trip to divers of any level. It was well worth the money. I now have more diving friends & possible diving buddies, if I should ever find myself in their neck of the woods. The crew especially the dive masters on the dive deck went out of their way to ensure everyone was happy & assisted in any possible way. The food Zack prepared was superb. There was nothing special about the menu, just good, American cooking. The Captain had a dry (British style), but very funny sense of humor. He teased me about my legal, name all week (no big deal). The diving was great! I had never done wall diving before, now I’m hooked.
Diving Recap:
Total number of dives: 25
Number of shallow dives (<60’
: 17
Number of deep dives (>60’
: 7
Deepest dive: 124’
Shallowest dive: 30’
Longest dive: 65 min.
Shortest dive: 32 min.
I'm still working on the pictures. So it might be another day or 2 on those, but I promise they're coming.
