feeling like I’d barely immersed myself in the many
options. Whether shallow dives to coral gardens along
the Andros Barrier Reef, vertical walls along the Tongue
of the Ocean or spectacular silverside-clogged caverns
like
Dianna’s Dungeons
, my time was impossibly brief
for the extraordinary opportunities presented.
EXUMA ISLANDS
I repacked my cameras and dive gear for the
15-minute flight back to Nassau to rendezvous with
the dive liveaboard Carib Dancer, bound for the
Exumas. The Exuma chain is a sinuous bridge of sand
and stubbly rock bisecting the Bahamas for more than
130 miles. I had previously explored the southern part
of the chain and was looking forward to new sites in
our northern itinerary. While the southern islands
feature popular dive sites (and even swimming pigs),
I had heard tales of great walls and sites holding large
numbers of fish in the north.
Diving by liveaboard is the best way to see the
diversity of a large island chain such as the Exumas, and
I was lucky to join a friendly group of skilled divers led
by a fantastic crew. Unlike land-based diving, liveaboard
ships can work a greater range of dive sites and typically
offer more dives in a day. For me nothing is more
peaceful than to be at sea for a few days and wake up to
an anchor drop at a great dive site. While the weather
ultimately limited our cruising range, I was able to see
74
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FALL 2014
Below, from top: An old drug-running plane is now a ray aggregation
reef in the Exumas. The Bahamian Defense Force cutter Austin Smith
can be a haunting sight when lit up at night.
