Snorkeling in the Bahamas takes some chutzpah. First there are sharks. Lots of them. Most are nurse sharks. While harmless, they measure 5 to 7 feet and are colored an ominous brownish gray. But spend any time observing one of the many fish cleaning stations and you’ll see lemon, black tip reef and the occasional bull shark. The facts are clear: sharks attack when people spearfish and the waters teem with fish guts. The potent smell attracts hungry predators. However, convincing anyone who has ever seen the movie “Jaws” or a terrified child that swimming in these waters is safe is altogether another story.
Next there is current. The Caribbean tides raise the water depths by about a foot, so its changes are essentially a non-event. In the Bahamas, they rip along at 3 feet and 3 knots…enough that a young child or weak swimmer will have difficulty making forward progress when swimming into the current. With fins, it’s less daunting, but a still a challenge. Lastly, jellyfish are common. While fortunately not plentiful, we see them frequently and have gotten a few stings.
Despite the real and perceived dangers, the prospect of snorkeling in a cave is too enticing to pass up. The Exumas were formed of limestone, a soft sedimentary rock as you may remember from 4th grade geology. As such, the land rocks are either smooth or highly pitted. At low tide, the smaller islands appear to float above the water as their bases have been worn away by millions of years of wave action. Caves, both above and below ground, abound. The Exumas Land and Sea Park contains several caves accessible by snorkelers under the right conditions, usually at slack tide when the current is weakest.
At Staniel Cay we visit the most popular cave in the area known as Thunderball, a site used during the filming of the eponymous Bond film. We opt to visit at the slack end of high tide along with another family. At high tide one can guide him/herself in by hand through a narrow passage or swim below surface through the rounded rock opening. The children are, understandably, nervous, so they guide themselves in while I opt to swim in. The cave is really a grotto with a wide oval-shaped opening that allows light to permeate onto the water. The main chamber is about 60 feet long and roughly circular in shape. Beneath the water, one can see two large oval-shaped openings about 25 feet across and 8 feet tall that appear as a backlit aquarium with coral and schools of fish in silhouette. We are stunned by the beauty and variety of fish in this small space. Schools of striped sergeant major fish, accustomed to handouts, immediately crowd any newcomer in search of crumbs. Deeper in the cave several huge colorful Queen Angel fish quietly feed. We’ve timed it a bit wrong however, and after about 30 minutes the current begins to kick up a notch and the jostling makes it clear that it is time to leave.
The next caves are located in the Rocky Dundas some 8 miles further north in the Exuma chain. Surrounded by beautiful soft and hard corals, we enter the first and largest cave. It is the only partially submerged cave in the Bahamas containing both stalactites and stalagmites (from a time when, of course, it was not submerged). The cave is shallower with colorful rock. Unlike Thunderball, fish do not explore inside, just at the reef at the entrance. Still looking out underwater at the backlit fish and reef is an unparalleled vista.
The second cave has a gorgeous staghorn coral standing guard at its entrance. We swim into this cave and are immediately tossed about by the rough water. There is a shelf here, so we stand upon and then hoist ourselves onto 3 foot higher interior floor and explore further back on foot. At the rear is a tiny patch of sand and the kids scratch their names into it. Chilton, sea snails and a single orange sea anemone are evidently the sole occupants. Despite wearing wetsuits for this adventure, the cold finally drives us back into the water and we gape at the fish as long as we can stand the chilly morning waters before leaving.
On the way back to Liberator we make an impromptu stop at a “drift” snorkel site. Here both the depth and current make anchoring untenable, so one person must stay in the dingy while the others simply drift with the current. The current acts much like a conveyer belt: it’s difficult to stop and explore anything, one just passes by: loads of colorful fish and coral. The snorkeling here is some of the best we’ve seen. It’s been worth braving the sharks, current and jellyfish!
No comments:
Post a Comment