Need advice

[rleslie]

My wife and I are presently on our sailboat at Warderick Wells, Exumas and will start heading back to the US in a few days. Our intended route is Shroud Cay, Highborne Cay, Nassau, Chub Cay, Bimini. Where are the best dive sites along this route? We can make a detour to northern Andros if necessary.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!!!!!!!!!

Roger

 

[longliner]

check out the trip report for Coral Caverns on Andros earlier in this forum.

 

[IMaFrogman]

Andros has great sites, but more towards central Andros, near North Bight. CHUB and Bimini have great sites, bimini has many bouyed. Of course Nassau is loaded with good diving, but mostly on the southwest end of the island. HIghborne Cay has great diving, not sure about shroud though.

 

[rleslie]

HIghborne Cay has great diving, not sure about shroud though.

Where around Highborne? We came through there on the way down and could not locate anything other than a small spot at Allens Cay.

 

[OceanObsessed]

There are nice reefs on the ocean side of Highbourn. If you encounter rough weather there is even a small reef along the channel that leads into the marina at Highbourne. It might be easier to snorkel it to watch for an occasional boat coming in. This is on the western (usually leeward) side so it is usually dive-able during rough weather. We did some spearing there and got a nice 25# grouper from that channel. When at Highbourne be sure and ask the dockmaster for directions to the spring on the island!

I have been to all the other areas that you mention except for Shroud and all the islands that you mention also have good diving. I have never seen any published numbers for diving locations in the Bahamas... we would just take the dingy out and look for reefs. The bahamas guide usually points out the general location of the decent reefs. Andros has good wall diving that has less pressure then the walls off Nassau.

Do they still have that huge whale skeleton on the beach at Waderick Wells?

 

[rleslie]

Do they still have that huge whale skeleton on the beach at Waderick Wells?

Yep, it's still here. Makes me wonder if those dinosaur skeletons I saw in NY weren't actually whale bones!!!

Are there any dive ops on the northern end of Andros?

 

[OceanObsessed]

Are there any dive ops on the northern end of Andros?

The only ones that I know of are Small Hope Bay Lodge and Coral Caverns. I was planning to fly into SHBL a couple of years ago, before Coral Caverns existed, and at the time it seemed to be the only game in town. You might want to contact them before you go because at the time SHBL only offered package deals like dive charter combined with a room and meals. When I called them they only offered mutli-day packages. I wanted to fly in on a private plane, dive, spend the night and fly out the next day and they did not have accomodations to suit this. I am not sure if you can just sail up and charter with them if you are staying on your sailboat. Not sure if Coral Caverns works the same way so I would definitely call them before you go.
Hope this helps.
-Chris

 

[OceanObsessed]

Yep, it's still here. Makes me wonder if those dinosaur skeletons I saw in NY weren't actually whale bones!!!

Its funny you say that because the first time I saw that skeleton on the beach we were approaching the island from a distance and my first thought was that it looked like they had un-earthed a dinosaur fossil . That thing is huge!

 

[OceanObsessed]

By the way... don't visit the spring on Highbourn cay. I thought you might have heard about it already when I mentioned it before. I'm not sure if they still do it but it was a practical joke that the islanders like to play on visitors. When you arrive at the marina they give you hand drawn map of the island and on the map there are directions to a path leading to a spring. So you follow the map and walk up the road, down another dirt road for a ways and then through the bushes down a winding path through the shrub. Along the way there are wooden signs that keep pointing you in the direction of the spring. Finally, after walking about a mile, you will find a metal spring about 6 inches long hanging from a tree with a sign pointing to it saying "Spring -->".

Pretty darn funny

 

[rleslie]

When you arrive at the marina they give you hand drawn map of the island and on the map there are directions to a path leading to a spring. So you follow the map and walk up the road, down another dirt road for a ways and then through the bushes down a winding path through the shrub. Along the way there are wooden signs that keep pointing you in the direction of the spring. Finally, after walking about a mile, you will find a metal spring about 6 inches long hanging from a tree with a sign pointing to it saying "Spring -->".

Pretty darn funny

That is great!!!! Thanks for the warning.