Conception Wall
, one of the most famous
in the Bahamas. A drive south on Long Island
reveals
Dean’s Blue Hole
, much loved by
freedivers as it is the world’s deepest known
blue hole at 663 feet.
Our first dive is at the 103-foot
Comberbach
wreck, which sits upright in close to 100 feet of
water; it is impressive, with good growth on it.
The propeller is almost unrecognizable for all
the encrustation. What really blows me away
is the amazing water, which is exceptionally
clear and an almost luminescent blue. Omar
Daley, our instructor and skipper, has been
diving Long Island for more than 20 years. He
says that he has seen huge spawning schools of
Nassau grouper at the wreck — “50 feet wide
and 80 feet tall around the winter full moons.
We even get whale sharks hanging around to
feed on the eggs.”
We sample a shark dive, which attracts
a handful of regular Caribbean reefs and
blacktips. It is quite a contrast to the high-
voltage shark dives I have done elsewhere
in the Bahamas, but it would certainly
make a good introduction to shark diving
because it is only 30 feet deep and the few
sharks generally keep a healthy distance. As
historical perspective, Stella Maris was the
first dive operation in the Bahamas to offer a
shark-interaction dive at
Shark Reef
.
My favorite dive is at
Split Rock
, which is a pretty,
shallow reef, with a high diversity of life. I spent time with
an attractive school of horse-eye jacks and then watched
a queen angelfish chomping through a sponge. Omar
also loves this spot: “It’s great for fish life, particularly
with the friendly jacks that just follow you around. It
feels like an aquarium with so many varieties of fish. It is
bright and shallow, a perfect starter for people’s trips.”
The next day we make the 16-mile crossing to
Conception Island. The calmer summer months are
best for visiting the 2-mile-long Conception Wall,
which reaches up to 55 feet from the ocean depths.
We make two drift dives on the wall, which is rich
with sponges — barrels, elephant ear and dark volcano
sponges and lots of deepwater gorgonia. Groupers
and lobsters are common, and the whole place has
a healthy, untouched feeling. Omar says summer is
the best time for mantas, and divers sometimes see
hammerheads or tiger sharks in the deep distance.
The top of the wall is quite deep; we’re diving on air
rather than nitrox, so we are soon cruising above it,
in the blue with the scenery clearly visible below us.
Suddenly we hear clicks and whistles, then moments
later a bottlenose dolphin blasts into view, makes a few
circuits of the group to check out everyone individually,
and then he’s off. He was only in view for a minute or
two, but the memory of an encounter with this wild
dolphin will live much longer.
All our dives are from the large and comfortable
Solmar 2
dive boat. In addition to ample space, there is
plentiful time. The dives sites are between an hour and
two and a half hours away, which means full day trips.
On both days, we pull in close to shore between the
dives and find ourselves alongside deserted beaches of
powder-white sand and inviting, glass-calm turquoise
waters. They are places so beautiful that when I’m back
home in England under leaden-gray skies I can’t quite
believe such places really exist.
This seems ideally suited to the guests here, who
love the feeling of being on “island time” and aren’t
necessarily trying to fill their logbook as fast as
possible. They appreciate having the beautiful ocean to
themselves, with no other divers or boats in sight. The
reefs feel untouched, and we see sharks on every dive. It
really is like diving back in time.
72
|
FALL 2014
Adam Hanlon inspects the rich marine growth,
including colorful sponges, on the wreck of the
Comberbach, off Stella Maris, Long Island.
