Lighthouse Reef: Abundance, Intimacy, and the Unexpected

Nervous photographer
A reef shark with his buddy cruising the reef
Cruising the Sea

Do You Like Sharks?

A grey reef shark sizing us up in Roatan

I grew up living near the Great Lakes. It was not until much later in life that I saw my first shark. The shop I was diving with at the time had told us to expect that we would see a shark or two on the dive. We did see a shark, but he took one look at us open circuit divers and swam the other way. Before his tail had completely disappeared into the distance, I thought well that wasn’t too bad. That sighting was over 20 years ago and since that time I’ve seen many varieties of sharks, but seeing a shark never gets old for me. And no, it is not because in my day job I’m a lawyer and I have enjoyed professional curtesy with the sharks in the water.

A nurse shark cruising over the soft corals

Before last year, I used to think oh there’s a nurse shark. Whoopi, a very docile animal.

Well, last year I was on a night dive where we knew nurse sharks would be feeding. In the briefing we were told to stay off the bottom which was only maybe 35 feet below. So we stayed in the mid-water about 15 feet off the bottom. I’m glad I stayed off the bottom. What I observed were a handful of nurse sharks pounding every hole in the reef looking for a sleeping fish to swallow. I have been in a cage and watched bull sharks go after fish bits that were tossed into the water near the cage. The bulls sharks were not that much different from the vigor with which the nurse sharks crashed the holes in the reef to find fish. The thing that startled me the most was the speed at which the many attacks were launched by the nurse sharks. Had Micheal Phelps been in one of the holes in the reef he would not have stood a chance of out swimming the nurse sharks.

Some close up scars on a handful of feeding bull sharks

In the murky water of the harbor where the shark cage was it was stunning how fast the bull sharks came at the cage and how careful I was at keeping everything well inside the cage.

Then there was the dive where we were watching and taking pictures of great hammerheads swim in water that the visibility was not great. After having visibility that was awesome a few days before, I began to feel very uncomfortable when I realized that a 12 foot hammerhead could swim up behind me while I was focused on a similar sized hammerhead in front of me and missed the one that was on my blind side. Glad my buddy was watching out for me.

Open wide
And visibility got worse from here.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t attribute some ill will to sharks. They just do what they have been doing for hundreds of millions of years. They are a top predator and they are just looking for a meal. They are intelligent predators and they are designed to move through the water far more efficiently than we are. And, they do an excellent job of cleaning off the the sick or otherwise unhealthy reef critters.

In your face

Of course as top predators, the existence of sharks in a particular dive site I always take as a good sign that the reef is healthy. That is, if the top predator is doing well then all of the fish and creatures that are on lower levels of the food chain must be in at least decent shape otherwise there would be little in the food chain to support the top predator.

Have you been to Thunder Dome?

Not far off the coast of West Caicos, which is part of Turks and Caicos, is a failed media idea that nevertheless still makes a very interesting dive site. Thunder dome was intended to be an underwater set for a television show that was based on what most scuba instructors would tell you is a fairly dangerous practice; i.e. mixing skin diving with compressed gas. The concept was that contestants would dive down 30 feet to a set which had a bubble system that spilled out pearls. The contestants would gather the pearls and when they needed more air they would go to a “mermaid” with a regulator connected to compressed gas, essentially a scuba system, would take a breath or two and continue collecting pearls. The object was to collect the most pearls and take the fewest hits of compressed gas and that contestant would win the most money. What could go wrong with that? Well, plenty. None of the contestants appear to have been trained scuba divers so presumably they had never heard the number one rule of scuba diving: Don’t hold your breath? Why—- because by breathing compressed gas and changing depth a person risks an over expansion injury; i.e. you could over expand your lungs so much they burst, among other serious injuries. Fortunately, while the production company did make a pilot or two, someone finally woke up to the risks of the project and killed the project. Nevertheless, the production company left the set for Thunder dome where it was in Turks and Caicos. The dome and other set pieces have made an interesting man made reef structure. Thirty years later, the set makes a very interesting site for certified divers.

habitat for fish

While I was exploring the set on scuba, did I look for pearls, yes, but not so much. I figured they would be hard to find and after 30 years had probably been pretty picked over. But there was still plenty to see because in the last thirty years quite a few sponges and corals had claimed the set as their new home.

grunts looking for pearls?

Although Thunder Dome was a failure as a television show, it nonetheless does make for a very interesting dive site to explore. So if you get to Turks and Caicos Thunder Dome is definitely a worthwhile site to dive.

Do you like night dives?

Crocodile fish from a night dive in Anilao

Not long ago I asked a relatively new diver whether she was going to do a night dive that was part of a trip. Her response was: I’ve never done one will I see anything? My response was probably a bit snappy: yes assuming you turn on your torch and keep your eyes open. I went on to explain that since we were diving in the ocean and on a reef she would normally see the “night shift” of critters. Many of them would be hunting for their dinner while the creatures she had seen on the reef during the day might be hanging out in holes in the reef and trying to sleep all in hopes of not being eaten.

An octopus waiting for prey to swim by

She asked who were the critters that we might see that we’re hunting for their dinner. I said if we were lucky we might find some octopus feeding.

An octopus hanging on to the crab he would be dining on

She asked what else might she see. I said well we might see a nudibranch or two.

A nudibranch crawling on the reef

She asked will we see anything weird? I said well it depends on what you mean by weird but since we were in Southeast Asia I said well we might see a bobbit worm.

A bobbit worm feeding at night

On that night dive we did see a bobbit worm which the dive guide would periodically push a morsel of food to. Our newer diver was startled the first time the jaws of the bobbit worm snapped shut and the worm pulled his prey into his hole in the sand.

When we eventually returned to the surface our newer diver said can we do that again? My response was well perhaps tomorrow. Will the boat need to save a space for you? The answer was: Of course…..