I
have been visiting the Bahamas as a dive photojournalist since the early 1980s, sometimes several times each year.
While each trip has been productive, sometimes amazingly so, each has had the challenge of being just a vignette of
a greater whole. There are 700 islands and 2,000 smaller cays in the Bahamas, with major centers of population and
commerce on New Providence (Nassau) and Grand Bahama (Freeport). Among the Out Islands (sometimes known
as the “Family Islands”), 27 are populated. This is a vast oceanic wilderness spread over 100,000 square miles. No one
person could cover it editorially or experientially in a single visit, but with a little help frommy friends we gave it a try.
We recruited four world-class marine photographers and tasked them each with visiting two or three islands and
photographing and reporting on their adventures for Bahamas Underwater Photo Week. We all traveled simultaneously
in the last week of May 2014. The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism
arranged for filmmaker Cristian Dimitrius (see Shooter, Page 92) to
document our adventures. The photo team included Eric Cheng, Alex
Mustard, Berkley White and me. Wetpixel.com staff Adam Hanlon
and Abi Smigel Mullens reported the event via social media. See their
coverage at wetpixel.com/articles/coverage-bahamas-underwater-
photo-week and
.
We present to you, distilled from several terabytes of collectively
produced digital data,
Bahamas Underwater Photo Week 2014
.
64
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FALL 2014
Grand Bahama, Bimini
and the Abacos
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY STEPHEN FR I NK
GRAND BAHAMA
It is appropriate that my week began with a visit to my
friends at UNEXSO (the Underwater Explorers Society)
in Freeport, Grand Bahama, for they were the progenitors
of so many things that define Bahamas diving today.
Celebrating their 50-year anniversary in 2015, UNEXSO
was instrumental in developing shark diving, and they
also have a robust cave-diving program. When few
destinations were sinking shipwrecks, UNEXSO acquired
and sank
Theo’s Wreck
as a dive attraction in 1982; the
228-foot freighter now rests on her port side near the
edge of the continental shelf in 105 feet of water.
While the deep-dive tank that once hosted Walter
Cronkite, Arthur Godfrey and Kim Novak is long gone,
and the boats that once transported Lloyd Bridges (with
his sons Beau and Jeff) have been upgraded long ago,
that early spirit of adventure and innovation still lives
on at UNEXSO today.
My first dive of this trip with UNEXSO was to
Ben’s
Cavern
, named for long-time UNEXSO dive instructor
Ben Rose — who, according to local lore, needed
water for his overheating radiator and hiked into the
bush, discovering the cavern leading to the immense
freshwater cave system that now bears his name.
Reservations are required at Ben’s Cavern to prevent
overcrowding, and it can be dived only with skilled cave-
qualified instructors to keep divers from penetrating the
cave system beyond what their skills allow. We dived
only the cavern portion, with the light from the entrance
always visible; yet even just a few fin strokes beneath the
pool in only 20 feet of water we encountered a beautifully
decorated system that hints at the subterranean glory
that makes the blue holes and caves of the Bahamas
must-do sites for cave enthusiasts.
UNEXSO is perhaps best known for their
Shark
Junction
shark encounter. With longtime friend and
dive professional Cristina Zenato handling the feeding,
we dived to a 30-foot sand patch where over the past two
decades the sharks have been conditioned to expect bait
carefully presented by a chainmail-clad shark wrangler.
Cristina has clearly established an intimate awareness of
individual sharks, some of which are more friendly and
engaging than others. One shark would swim to her lap
repeatedly, like a puppy hoping to be scratched on its
A WEEK UNDERWATER IN THE
BAHAMAS
