Abacos Trip Report, May 2004

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rdougmatthews

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Location
Tallahassee, FL
Great Abaco Trip Report
5/18/04 - 5/22/04

Just spent a week with a couple of buddies in Abaco, so I figured I'd post up a trip report for folks that are considering it as a dive destination. It's long, so here's the summary:

- The reefs are remarkably healthy and the "landscape" of corals and limestone caverns is stunning.
- The blue hole diving was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
- The fish life was variable, a little thin outside of the marine preserve, but abundant inside.
- The dive 'industry' there appears to be getting its sea legs, but isn't yet totally professional-quality -- which is both good and bad.
- The island itself is not exciting, so bring friends.
- Net-net: I'm glad I went, but would recommend the nearby Turks & Caicos over Abaco based on my experiences in both places.

A few logistical details for the folks who care about such things.

Getting There and Away


My dive buddy flew American Eagle out of Miami and a friend & I took Continental out of West Palm. None of us had any complaints about the trip over, but there are a number of charter services out of different airports including Jacksonville, Daytona, Orlando, and others, so make sure to check those if you're not near an airport with commercial service (PBI, FLL, and MIA). Also, when leaving, give yourself a little time at the airport -- it gets pretty jammed up in there in the early afternoon when the charters & commercial flights start queuing up. Taxis will be waiting for you when you arrive, and will come get you within minutes of calling them to go back -- the whole island uses VHF radio to communicate, so anyone -- taxis, resorts, restaurants, marinas -- can call or be called easily.

Lodging and Food


We decided to stay in Marsh Harbour so that we'd be in 'town' and wouldn't have to rent a car to go do anything. This is because we assumed that there would be anything to do. There was not. As lodging goes, there are pretty limited options in Marsh Harbour itself -- a resort or two, a few condo complexes, lots of rental houses. We stayed at the Regattas of Abaco, a condo / timeshare community, and paid about $1500 for a two-bedroom unit for the entire week. The rooms are fine, and they have a pool, a nice little beach area and deck. There is no restaurant in the compound, but there are several within walking distance. The resort next door, Abaco Beach Resort, was more inclusive, as resorts tend to be, with the dive operator on-premises, a restaurant and bar, a pool & jacuzzi area, etc. Given the choice, as a group of guys who would have enjoyed after-diving actvities, I probably would spend the extra money and stay at the resort. For couples, early-to-bed types, or cost-conscious travellers, the Regattas are a better option.

The restaurants around Marsh Harbour are all pretty good, tending to be in the $20/person range for dinner. Sapodilly's was our favorite (always choose the Catch of the Day), and the breakfast buffet at the Abaco Beach Resort was good and cheaper than expected. Be warned, though -- when you get back from a morning dive (which tends to leave around 9 or 9:30) at 2 PM or so, there will be nothing open other than the snack shack -- the restaurants keep tight meal hours during the day, and they don't correspond to the dive schedules.

The Dives


We decided to dive with Abaco Dive Adventures (http://www.abacodiveadventures.com/) based on a trip report here on ScubaBoard. It's one of the newer dive operations on the island, and the newness showed during our trip -- in good and bad ways. There is another operator, Dive Abaco, which is more established but which has garnered a not-so-good reputation in the community since it was sold by its founder to another management team. To be fair to Abaco Dive Adventures, all but one of the managing partners of the shop were off-island while we were there. As a result, Kay, the remaining boss, was a bit frantic during our time there, leading to a more disorganized experience than I was used to in a dive operation. The boat left late consistently, the boat was empty then overbooked then available all in a 30-minute span before launch time, trips didn't go out because people had to be picked up from the airport, and so on -- the usual stuff when you're understaffed. My guess is that when they're at full staff capacity, it's a very different experience. And the flip side of disorganization is flexibility (see, the glass is half-full!), which meant that we got to see and do a few things that we might not have otherwise. In addition, they have a great gear locker, and rinse, hang, and store all of your equipment after each day's dives -- a huge selling point for me.

Day 1

We got to Marsh Harbour at the tail end of a pretty big wind storm, and Kay said that the water was still churned up. She suggested that we try an inland site, a blue hole that they had just recently started diving. Now, I'm from north Florida, and my training dives were in some of the most pristine springs in the country, so I was a little skeptical. But, it sounded better than whitecaps and silt, and my dive buddy Jason was excited about it. The hole itself was completely unremarkable at the surface -- it looked like a 30'-wide puddle surrounded by mud and weeds. We climbed in over a few wooden palates that had been put next to it as marsh platforms, and went in.

Kay had explained to us that there was a collection of fresh water on top of the underground salt water, so when we went in, we wouldn't see the bottom, then we'd get into a blurry section of brackish water, and then we'd be in the salt section, where the visibility would be back up. It was dark going in, and my heart rate definitely went up a little -- I've never enjoyed descending into blackness. I was a little underweighted going down, so I had to flip over and swim down headfirst to get to depth. This turned out to be a mistake. The blurry section where fresh and saltwater met was *really* blurry -- it looked like I was looking through the heat distortion over a very hot fire. And right as I hit that, upside down, my second stage filled with water. So I was now upside down, drinking where I should have been breathing, and everything looked like I had 20/400 vision (and the 72-degree water didn't help). I freaked out a little, paused, swished the brackish water around in my mouth, remembered that this is what that octopus is for, switched over and started to breathe, turned upright, and stared forward for a few seconds, reminding myself to thank my Stress & Rescue instructor for all of those drills he put us through.

After that little episode, I descended down to my buddy -- feet first this time -- and actually got into the salt water section. Boy, what a difference 20 feet can make. Above the salt layer, I couldn't see 15 feet -- below it, I could see from our level -- about 70 feet -- down to the bottom, which was at about 250' or so. The hole itself had widened to about 80' in diameter, and it was clear and well lit. There were stalactites that were 10 and 15 feet long and other beautiful limestone formations, and the water warmed up to a very manageable 78 degrees. There were a number of cave entrances below 100' -- I only got down to about 99 feet -- and Kay told us that a few cavers had explored some of the areas off the hole. We made a few circuits around the walls of the holes and ascended through the brackish layer back into the freshwater. Now that my eyes had adjusted, the freshwater layer was actually quite pretty, and the limestone formations along the walls were as interesting.

Our second dive was like the first, except that I was now calm, properly weighted, and wearing a loaner regulator. The silt we'd kicked in during our entry & exit was falling in layers through the hole, and in the clear lower salt layer, it gave the impression of waves of fog sinking through the chamber. I also confirmed that the blind cave fish swimming in the hole were, in fact, blind -- I held out my hand in front of one and it swam right into my palm. Of course then I felt terrible, but the fish seemed unfazed. I guess blind fish grow used to running into things. All in all, the blue hole dives have to be the most interesting dives I've ever done (even though I've only done 60-ish dives). Kay told us that some divers have said the blue hole dive alone made the trip worthwhile, and I'd tend to agree with them.
 
Day 2

Our first reef dives were in an area called Baker Bay, which is just now starting to be visited by operators. Although it's not a preserve yet, it's relatively untouched because the shallow reefs (and shallow bottom) make it uninteresting to the fishing crowd. I did see an anchor scar or two on the corals, so I sincerely hope that the sites there are moored before too long. Our first dive was to a tarpon cave where about a dozen tarpon hang out, apparently just waiting for divers to come check them out. To get there, we anchored in a sandy section of a coral garden, and swam through a series of limestone chambers that had formed under the shallow corals. The chambers were remarkable, usually about 25' around and 10' high, and perforated by beams of light like spotlights through holes in the reef. Usually enterprising corals took advantages of the sunlight, so there were a number of places where a coral mound would be illuminated from above in the center of an otherwise dark chamber -- it was really breathtaking. In a good way. Once we got through the chambers and came to the outside of the reef, about 50 feet deep, we swam along the coral "wall" to the tunnel. The wall was covered in giant sheet corals, most of which looked really healthy, and which created a beautiful 30-foot-high mushrooming landscape along the swim out. The tarpon themselves were big -- about 3 to 4 feet long -- and swam slowly past us out of their cave as we approached, giving everyone with a camera lots of time for close-ups. We came back through the chambers to the coral garden under the boat, and I followed tropical fish around and looked at brain corals and sea fans until coming back up.

The second dive was much shallower -- max depth of 39 feet, but with the vast majority of it spent above 25 -- with one fun feature. Tens of thousands of silversides had filled up a limestone chamber to avoid being eaten (although there were permits and other larger fish schooled around the entrances to the chamber waiting for strays), so we swam into the chamber and were swarmed by silversides for a few minutes. It made for some nice pictures. Otherwise, the dive was nice, slightly lower visibility, and a good shallow dive to check out corals and tang.

Kay had told us that the weather would probably bring the visiblity down, and it was lower than I would have expected -- probably 40 to 50 feet. The dives, especially the walls of plate coral, would have been really spectacular at top visibility. I would imagine, though, that consistently good visibility is tough in that area, because it's outside the barrier islands and faces out to the Atlantic, and most importantly, it's really shallow. The deepest section of the Bay was 50 feet, and the majority of the dive area was less than 20 feet deep -- a few days of good wind would easily churn up a lot of silt. I'd be curious to hear if other divers have had good visibility off Great Abaco, but I would guess that Caribbean-style visibility is a rarity there. Even so, the day will never come when I complain about 50 ft viz in 75 degree water while surrounded by triggerfish, tang, and tarpon.

Day 3

We returned to Baker Bay with a group of divers that were all travelling together -- coincidentally, one of whom had written the ScubaBoard review that had made me decide to come to Marsh Harbour in the first place. Our first dive was a big disappointment -- we went to a bowl-shaped site where, supposedly, rays and sharks would often school and check out the divers. However, our divemaster -- a new hire by the dive operator -- had decided that today would be the day that we got some exercise. We swam at a breakneck pace -- or rather, he did -- over an area that was about 4 times larger than my usual dives cover. As usual, the corals were fantastic -- we swam between 30 foot tall coral towers to enter the site and saw some very shallow and pretty sea fan beds along the route -- but we never slowed down long enough to look for or at anything specific. I did see an eagle ray off in the distance, and other divers saw a green turtle, but it was definitely more of a site survey than a leisurely dive.

When we got back to the boat, the divemaster got a chiding from some of the divers -- a bit overboard in my opinion, but well-intentioned -- and Kay took us on the second dive herself. This dive was a series of swim-throughs of limestone caverns. I enjoyed it, but my dive buddy got bored since it was a little repetitive. Lots of tropicals throughout the dive, amazing elkhorn corals, including one that was probably 12' wide across the top of its branches. The dive was basically at snorkelling depths -- max depth was 22 feet -- but the cavern interiors were well lit and very interesting (and would have made for a challenging free dive to say the least, so I was glad I had the tank on).

Day 4

One of my dive instructors once said that he measured a dive trip purely by the number of times he dove. He took the total trip cost, divided it by the number of dives, and the lower the number, the better. By that metric, I wasn't doing so well -- 2 dives per day for 3 days. The dive operator, being understaffed all week, had decided to skip on morning dives for days 2 & 3 in favor of picking up divers at the airport and shuttling them to their lodging, so the boat had only gone out once a day. But now that the big group had arrived and the shuttling duties were discharged, the boat was finally going out for the morning and afternoon, and I signed on for both sessions.

These dives were to the better-known Fowl Cay marine preserve, a large area off Man O'War Cay that had been extensively buoyed with mooring balls, and which was a no-fishing zone. That made a big difference, and there was a visible increase in the number of fish -- particularly hogfish, yellowtail, and grouper. I later found out that some operators fed the yellowtail, so it might have been more of a case of the fish coming up to the divers than a net increase in total fish, but I suspect not. Our morning dive was to a site called The Edge, presumably so named because it's the outer edge of the Fowl Cay reef. We swam along a high wall of coral, and were promptly spotted by a group of reef sharks that had obviously been fed -- they swam next to and around us for the entire dive, coming to within 15 or 20 feet of us at times. I always enjoy swimming with sharks, and never cease to be amazed by the grace and elegance of their movement. An eagle ray also made a few swim-bys as we went along the wall, and I saw three or four variety of grouper -- rock hind, nassau, spotted, and maybe one other -- all along the steep (40') wall. The site was still pretty silted up, but visibility was up to 60 feet at times. We returned to the coral garden under the mooring buoy, and I swam around taking pictures of corals and tropicals for the rest of my air.

The second dive was at a nearby site called The Towers, which was a nice dive but with little new to report. The main feature of the site are three towers of coral that rise up to the surface from a 50 foot bottom, and which are about 20 feet in diameter. Swimming down to the base of them and looking up is quite an experience. Another reef shark spotted the group on this dive and followed us around for a while, and more near-domesticated grouper came by to beg for snacks. All in all, a very satisfying dive, even if it was starting to feel "normal" by now.

The afternoon dives came right back to Fowl Cay, and in fact, right back to the same sites. Unfortunately, the dives also came with a different group of divers. Tanks had to be strapped into BCs mid-dive, I had to provide an underwater inflator hose demonstration to a gentleman who was literally dragging himself along the bottom, sea fans were left in worse shape than they were found, and so on. Also, my dive buddy ("I haven't dove in 3 years, but I just loved it back when I did!") decided that 30 minutes was plenty for her, so she saw the sights and headed back to the boat, leaving me under the boat with about 1700 PSI. I passed the time with the friendly fish, and a few reef sharks had come to check out the boat, so there was plenty to look at. We re-dove the Towers and the Edge, and left the sites at about 5:30 PM.

All in all, the diving in Great Abaco was outstanding -- but no more so, in my experience, than the diving just south of the Bahamas in the Turks & Caicos. It basically reminded me of diving off of Key Largo, but with fewer dive boats and healthier coral. My overall impression when considering the cost of travel and lodging, the lack of any land activities on the island, and the quality of the dive operations, was that I would rather spend the same money and go to Salt Cay or Grand Turk, or do a liveaboard trip. I wouldn't trade the trip I had for anything, but if I were giving advice to someone planning their own excursion, I'd suggest that you explore other options and treat Abaco as a "plan B" destination or as part of a combo fishing and diving excursion -- apparently the fishing out of Marsh Harbour is world renowned, far more so than the diving. I imagine there's a reason for that.
 

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