From the title, my philosopher friends are probably thinking I am going to write about the connection between present time and future time; but they would be wrong. My diver friends know that I’m thinking more about will there be a strong current underwater on my next dive? Underwater currents are like the wind. You really can’t see them except in relationship to other things. So for instance we can drop a few blades of grass on the water and assuming we are still,if there is a current, the blades of grass will move one direction or another. If the current is too quick we may decide to go to another site where there is either less current or possibly none at all. Of course, we may elect to do a drift dive and just go with the flow.
When there is a modest current we usually want to swim into the current on the way out and have the current push us back to the boat on the way back. By doing this we have an added measure of safety because, all other things being equal swimming back to the boat with a current to our backs should help push us back to the boat so we do not exert ourselves as much and therefore use less air.
Currents are not inherently bad for diving. if they were there would be no dive industry in Cozumel Mexico. Cozumel is famous for its drift dives. The basic concept is you drop in at point “A” and you let the current take you along the reef for a distance until you get to a certain point “B”in your air supply and then you ascend. Hopefully, the boat captain has followed your bubbles well enough to at least be in the same zip code and can bring the boat close to the divers for an easy exit.
So the question remains will there be a current on your future dives?
There are a lot of dives that I have done where the boat ride to the dive site can be quite long. Have long boat rides guaranteed a great dive experience, unfortunately no. Curiously, sometimes the shortest boat rides have yielded some great dives, particularly if there if there is some man-made structure in the area. Curiously, sometimes the local pier, jetty or bridge provide opportunities for divers to explore the underwater world and find some interesting sea creatures.
Not long ago we did a dive near a pier in Dominica. It started out late in the afternoon so the light was very low. When I reached the bottom at about 35 feet the first thing I found was an old paint bucket with sponges growing out of it. It was a little surreal, but it is not the first time I have seen what might seem like trash being re-purposed. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for trash in the oceans. Nevertheless, I am less surprised now than in the past that sometimes sea creatures are able to re-purpose what someone intended to throw away. Similarly, the posts that were set into the sea floor also create structure in which sea creatures may make a home.
Even larger animals seem to find hiding holes for themselves.
cataloguing the creature we saw in a one hour dive was hard. In part because I kept switching back and forth between still shots and video, but in part because the sheer number of creatures and their variety. We saw a variety of shrimp and crabs. We saw several species of puffer fish. We saw a slipper lobster. And we saw several seahorses.
So the next time you are driving by a pier, jetty or bridge, maybe you should ask yourself: “I wonder if I ought to go explore it and see if there are any interesting sea creatures?”
Often times I hear divers talking about the deepest dive they have done or the fastest current or describing some other feature that made a dive unusual. Sometimes divers look down their noses at dives that are less than 60 feet. After all any certified diver can go to 60 feet, you are supposed to be an advanced certified diver to go deeper.
Nevertheless, stingray city in Grand Cayman which is 12 foot in-depth to the sand is pretty spectacular.
The fishermen used to clean their catchs just outside the mouth of the harbor and throw the remains overboard. Rays oftentimes would feed on the remains and would gather for a meal when they heard the fisherman’s boats heading back to the harbor.
I dove Stingray City with Divetech, which is an excellent shop in Grand Cayman. Before the dive the briefing advised that we would want to be over-weighted by 4 to 5 pounds. (I added 4 pounts to my usual 12 pounds). We would drop to the sand and stay in one place while the ray wrangler would feed the rays. The rays would be southern rays which would range in size from about a foot across the widest part of their body to well over three feet across their body. We would all dive air as opposed to nitrox (oxygen enriched air) because nitrox would not change our bottom times because the dive was so shallow. Once we were down we would get into more or less a circle around the ray wrangler.
Once we were all on the bottom, and even before the wrangle arrived, the rays started to approach our group. The rays seemed a bit shy at first but slowly became more willing to swim near our group. When the wrangler decended with the chopped-up squid in a water bottle more rays came to see us. For about forty minutes the wrangler would move around and the rays would follow her in hopes that a small bit of squid would be squirted out of the feed bottle and they would get a snack. Along with the rays we also were jointed by yellow tail snappers and other fish. During the dive we saw at least a dozen rays who would swim around and put on a show for us. After the wrangler went back up to the boat we were allowed to swim around several large coral heads to see the local fish life. Within a few moments I had found lobsters and other creatures to observe and film. In order to get close to the lobster I dropped to the sand and crawled up close to the coral head to film the lobster. When I backed out from the coral head a weight pocket fell out of my bcd. I was so enthralled with looking for creatures, I didn’t miss it and only knew it was missing when one of the divers handed it back to me when we were on the boat. I guess I didnt’ need that extra four pounds after all.
Most of the tourists head to the sand bars with chest-high water to interact with the stingrays. The boats’ proprietors bring along with them pails of chunked-up squid meat, which they dispense by hand to the animals, thus attracting dozens of the creatures to the feeding spot. But for me the more interesting opportunity is to dive to 12 feet and hang out until the southern rays arrive and watch the action. To me what really makes the dive unique is the interaction with so many southern rays. On most dives, if I find one ray during the dive that usually means it has been a good dive; To see dozens of rays during a single dive is a special treat.
The grace and ease with which rays move through the water is best seen in video. It reminds me that they live there, and we are just guests.
Antigua is a very beautiful island. It is a volcanic island. There are mountains and there are many awesome places to hike and look out over the surrounding Caribbean water. As a pure diving trip Antigua is not in the same league as the Cayman islands or Cozumel. However, as an island to sail around and explore both land and sea it has may endearing features.
As a volcanic island the sand is very heavy and when it is stirred up it is like concrete. When the sand is stirred up, it is slow to settle and visibility can be quite challenging.
We traveled around the island on a live aboard for a week and dove at various spots along the way. We saw a variety of animals including an octopus feeding on a conch. We also saw a variety of land features such as the “Devil”s Bridge” and the Pillars of Hercules.
Some of the dive sites are quite shallow. For less experienced divers there are quite a few shallow water sites to explore.
Antigua is a beautiful island and one worth exploring, particularly from a live aboard.
