Coming up, Jonathan and Cameraman Zach explore a deep cave on the bottom of the ocean in
the Bahamas!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
In recent years, I have become fascinated with cave diving.
I have been diving in caves in Mexico, caves in Florida and caves in Abaco, Bahamas.
They all have one thing in common: these caves are accessed by land.
But there are also caves on the bottom of the ocean.
So, I’m on my way to the Exumas, a beautiful chain of Bahamian islands, to explore some
ocean caves.
The Zachs and I land on Grand Exuma, to begin our grand adventure.
The Exumas are located in the southern Bahamas, a quick flight from Miami.
They are known for being some of the most beautiful islands in the world with super
blue water and white sand beaches.
But they’re also known for having lots of ocean caves.
We have brought all of our cave diving gear, which makes for an impressive pile of luggage.
Soon we’re off, and these are not the best roads we have ever seen.
We head over to Dive Exuma and meet owners Tamara McGaw-Robinson and Jonathan Robinson.
Hi Tamara!
Hi Jonathan, how you doing?
Good how are you?
Are you ready to go diving?
Let’s go!
Jonathan is the boat captain and today, also the divemaster!
Zach and I start setting up our gear while we wait for the rest of the divers to show
up.
Soon everyone else is here, and Captain Jonathan—I like the sound of that—gives us quick boat
briefing.
Then its time to push off.
We only have a ten minute ride to the dive site which is near Stocking Island just across
the bay.
Stocking Island has a picture perfect bay, providing safe anchorage for a bunch of sailboats.
But right in the middle of this bay is a blue hole—an underwater cave entrance.
Captain Jonathan gives the group a dive briefing.
Most of the divers on the boat are not cave divers.
So they are only going to see the cavern section where they can see daylight.
Cameraman Zach and I however, brought full sidemount cave gear to do a deeper inspection.
It seems weird to be donning this stuff on a boat.
Cave diving and boat diving, we’re going cave diving from a boat!
Once all the open water divers have hit the water, we gear up.
I’ve never done a water entry from a boat with sidemount gear, so here it goes!
Graceful.
It has been really windy recently, so the visibility is a little murky, but as we sink
down, we immediately find the huge yawning mouth of the blue hole.
Zach leads the charge as we sink into the deep.
Heading down, we pass one of the other divers.
As it gets darker, we start switching on our video lights.
As the opening narrows, we can feel the strong rush of water coming out of the cave.
Ocean caves are tidal, which means sometimes water is rushing out, and other times it’s
rushing in.
You never want to dive one of these caves when the water is rushing in, because it might
suck you in, and you won’t be able to get out.
This is about as far as the other divers can go, with the light of day visible so they
know the way out.
Zach stops to film the cave walls.
Unlike the bare rock walls of inland caves, ocean caves are full of encrusting marine
life on every surface, like hydroids and sponges.
It can be very sharp and some of it stings so we definitely wear gloves.
Some of the sponges are quite colorful and beautiful.
This encrusting life even grows on the cave line.
We struggle upstream in the current.
It’s over a hundred feet deep and we are exerting ourselves, so this kind of dive can
be dangerous.
I can hardly hold myself in position for a shot kneeling on the bottom.
I’m really glad this current is trying to push me out of the cave, not the other way
around.
Forget about the classic cave diving frog kick, I need to kick as hard as I can to make
forward progress.
Fortunately, all the silt I’m kicking up goes immediately downstream.
We discover why the cave line in this cave is not just a thin string, but a thick rope.
Sometimes you need it to get around a corner!
After fighting our way into the cave for 20 minutes, we finally turn around and enjoy
floating out with the current.
So easy and relaxing!
The strong current through these tunnels coming from somewhere deep out in the ocean, brings
a constant supply of nutrients from the open ocean to feed all the creatures growing on
the walls, floor and ceiling.
It takes barely 90 seconds to get back to the cavern zone where I can see light from
the sun and a school of parrotfish.
Captain Jonathan is standing there waiting for us like Aquaman.
The current shoots us up and out of the blue hole.
In fact we have to be careful not to ascend too fast.
Zach stops to film some fish.
We both have decompression stops to do.
The dive wasn’t long but it was deep.
We slowly make our way up into the shallows.
There isn’t much to see in this small bay.
Finally we surface at the stern of the boat.
Woo!
Man, that was quite a ride!
Zach still with me?
There he is.
We pass our tanks up, having completed our first ocean cave dive!
But that’s not all we are going to see today.
Captain Jonathan has another neat cave to show us.
We take another ten minute ride across the bay to a secret spot, and suit up again.
In just 15 feet of water, there’s a small crack in the bottom.
It’s tiny!
But with sidemount gear, we can sneak in there.
Zach goes first to investigate, leaving his camera behind.
The flow out of this crack is amazing.
He can barely make headway.
A minute later he comes back up and it’s my turn.
He passes me my camera and I head down, light rays bouncing off the sides.
When I get to the bottom, I’m in a super narrow cavern zone.
I can’t go very far before the passage is too small but I do find a lobster hotel, full
of tons of huge spiny lobsters.
Then I turn and head back up towards the sun.
I emerge super excited just because that was a really cool experience!
Ocean caves are extremely different from inland caves, subject to tidal flows which can change
direction, and full of marine life decorating the walls.
They can be a lot of work to explore, but so satisfying as well.
Fortunately we have several more blue holes to explore on Exuma, so the fun isn’t over
yet in the Blue World!
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