Hi SD fans, and welcome back to the channel. Thankfully, restrictions put in place due to
the COVID-19 pandemic are being relaxed, if not removed completely, at more and more destinations
around the globe, meaning the opportunity to get our gills wet in warm, tropical locations is fast
becoming a reality. To further whet your appetite for a spot of foreign travel to a diving hotspot,
in this video I am going to be giving you a whistlestop tour of the Bahamas,
undoubtedly one of the world’s top diving destinations,
especially when it comes to dramatic walls, colourful reef fish and, of course, sharks.
Think of Caribbean diving destinations and I bet the Bahamas is close to the top
of the list. This archipelago nation sprawls across nearly 100,000 square miles of ocean,
and exploring the various islands and cays on a liveaboard is a little slice of paradise. Being
so close to the USA, the Bahamas is a popular short-haul trip for North American divers,
but it is easy to get to the islands from the UK and Europe as well.
The main islands of Nassau and Grand Bahama are surrounded by fantastic diving, as are
the Out Islands of Andros, the Abacos, Eleuthera, Bimini, the Exumas, San Salvador and Cat Island.
Whether you want coral gardens, abyssal walls and ripping drifts or vast shoals of fish,
majestic pelagics, even epic cave and cavern dives, the Bahamas can seriously deliver.
You can stay on any of these islands, and that will give you some awesome diving experiences,
but to really get out and see the best of the Bahamas,
you’ll want to be on a liveaboard, and there are various itineraries on offer.
One of the most-popular routes takes you down through the Exuma Marine Park,
which was created back in 1958 and was actually the first land and sea park
in the world. The Exumas comprises more than 350 small islands and cays stretching over 120
miles from just south of New Providence, and trips normally make a loop taking in Eleuthera as well.
There are a multitude of dive sites, but some of the best include Amberjack Reef,
Cathedral and Pillar Wall. Amberjack Reef is a patch reef
and you will often encounter Caribbean reef sharks and large grouper, but don’t forget to
look for the little stuff – critters you can find include pirate blennies and garden eels. On your
safety stop under your liveaboard, you’ll often be surrounded by a vast shoal of horse-eye jacks.
Cathedral is part of the expansive Dry Docks Reef, and what starts as a gentle slope becomes
gradually steeper until it drops off vertically into the Exuma Sound. The ‘cathedral’ which
gives the site its name is a large swim-through filled with silversides. In the blue off the wall
you can see eagle rays and reef sharks. Pillar Wall is, as the name suggests, a wall dive,
and it follows the classic profile for a Bahama wall – a relatively shallow sandy
bottom turning into sand chutes and rocky reef before dropping off into the abyss. Expect
impressive sponge and coral growth on the wall itself, and plenty of pelagic action in the blue.
Another popular route that is now on offer runs out of Grand Bahama’s West End,
and goes to the famous Tiger Beach, without a doubt one of the best 15ft dives in the world.
Here you will get up close and personal with reef sharks, nurse sharks, lemon sharks and, of course,
tiger sharks. However, there is far more to diving in this area than just this one dive.
Mount Olympus is one of the best reef dives in the Caribbean,
period. I was absolutely blown away when I dived it several years ago,
and could have quite happily spent a few days exploring the cut-throughs, overhangs and reefs,
which are smothered in pristine coral and sponge growth. It is so colourful it is
more reminiscent of an Indo-Pacific reef than what you would expect to find in the Caribbean.
The Sugar Wreck is a barge that went down in the late-1800s and with it being in the
middle of nowhere, it has become a natural haven for marine life, and is now a thriving habitat
for all manner of reef fish, as well as resident green moray eels and a friendly hawksbill turtle.
An extended itinerary taking in all of the dive sites out of the West End
as well as swinging down the west coast of Bimini is also occasionally on offer. Bimini can deliver
close encounters with great hammerhead sharks, but as well as these magnificent predators,
it boasts some superior dive sites, including the Sapona wreck, which like the Sugar Wreck
is a mecca for marine life, Bull Run, which is a series of three large coral heads
surrounding a sandy patch, that is frequented by reef sharks and the occasional bull shark,
and the so-called Tuna Alley where, you guessed it, you can see tuna and mackerel.
We have teamed up with Aggressor Liveaboards for this series of short video tours around some of
the world’s best diving destinations, and here in the Bahamas they have the Bahamas Aggressor,
which offers week-long charters and occasional ten-night charters.
Expect up to 27 dives on a seven-night charter, and a whopping 42 dives on a ten-night charter.
The Bahamas Aggressor is 100 feet long, and has six staterooms for its 14 passengers.
It has a large salon, spacious sun deck, shaded cocktail deck, bar, grill and hot tub.
There is so much more to the Bahamas than we have shown
here, but it gives you a taster for this fantastic diving destination.
Have you dived the Bahamas? What were some of your most-memorable moments? Leave your comments below,
and if you have a question, fire away – if we can’t answer, maybe someone in our community will
be able to. Remember, if you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel,
and check out our playlist for more educational, informative and, hopefully, entertaining videos.
As always, stay safe – and if you are going diving, enjoy!