Smmcdonald
Bahamas
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Nº72
Date: 2016-03-30 - 10:28
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Max Depth: 52.3m Duration: 31mins
Dive Location
- Temp: Surf 27°C Bottom 25°C
- Dive type : Deep dive, Reef, Wall
- Visibility: Excellent Water: Salt
Specific gear used
- Weights: 5.4 kg
Dive reviews
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Recent Divers in The Exumas
Recent Pictures in The Exumas
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Dive Profile
- 1. Air
- 10L Aluminium 221 → 40 bar
- Average depth: 15.3m
Data provided by EOL.org
Species Identified
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Day started a little frustrating: My next attempt at a wall dive (and to actually *see* the wall) ended with an abort after my computer died on me about half way down the mooring line. Still not sure what happened: swapped the battery with Billy, who then put mine in his computer and it works just fine. Oh well...
This was my third and last chance to dive the wall on this trip, and it turned out to be everything I had hoped! Sans large pelagics, the dive offered a lot of other interesting sites: coral forming columns, canyons and swim-throughs all giving way to the vast blue ocean! What a neat feeling to know you are suspended 2000' above the ocean floor, and nothing beyond but blue water for miles!
Billy, Jen and I met at the bottom of the mooring line, and then headed out via a deep canyon toward a small drop to about 100'. There we found the "Devil's Chair"; an old lawn chair that is anchored into a sandy patch on the floor and popular for photo ops. After a quick filming of Jen and Billy on the chair, we continued out to the wall's edge, where the reef gave way to open water.
Over the edge of the wall, the floor sloped at a high angle toward the abyss (presumably 2000' or so to the floor). We descended along the wall to about 140' when I noticed the sounds of the bubbles and my breathing changed. This difference became more pronounced the deeper we went. Then I looked at my viewfinder and noticed a black "dot" had formed right in the center. This got worse as we descended, and at first I thought it may have been on the lens itself. At one point, Jen turned and signaled that we were at 143'! At that point, we had leveled off a bit and were swimming along the wall. At this point, looking down, the wall seemed to slope more and even disappear beneath us. Nothing but blue in every direction except to our left.
We quickly turned up and started to ascend, still within yards of the wall. Above we could see divers swimming about near the top of the ledge, appearing so far ahead of us I wondered how deep we actually were. Checking my computer, we were back up to around 140'. A little further up, and I noticed that the black dot that appeared on my viewfinder was now gone.
Once back on top, we coasted along the coral, watching our other dive buddies swim along the "canyons" and swim-throughs from above. Although we didn't see any pelagic marine life (not even sharks this time), we did see several large specimens of the more typical reef fish, including a large scrawled cowfish and queen triggerfish.
Back on the ascent toward the boat, we were greeted by a small group of four horse-eyed jacks. Their formation is interesting: they seem to stack top-to-bottom, with each a little behind and to one side of the other.
Back on the boat, and I checked off one more dive from my list. The first wall dive, out of three attempts, was certainly worth all of the build-up! Checking my computer, I noticed at some point I hit 172 feet! Oops! I see how easy it can be to get caught up in the moment and lose your place. However, I must have only been there for a few seconds as I was never far from Jen and she was just barely above me during the descent down the wall.
Checking my film later, the black dot never appeared. I suppose the pressure build-up caused the anomaly to form on the viewfinder itself (which makes sense, as it's an LCD screen), but no harm done to the lens.