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Bahamas Columbus island / Club Med, June 26- July 31, 1999
Author: galedd@aol.com
This is the diving portion of the report, I will post more details on Club Med In Rec.Vacations.All-inclusive.
In summary this is a great resort, great beach, nice rooms , great food with mediocre diving. This is (IMHO) an also diving vacation, where diving is secondary.
The summary ( for those who want to skip the rest), the reef in Columbus Island has a major Algae (green lettuce) problem, the coral is dead, visibility was so so and Club Med operates cattle boats. 15 dives in each dive I saw 6-8 friendly groupers, 2 Angle fish, 2 trigger fish, 2 file fish and some grunts. Saw several turtles, one shark. 2 people ( not me) had close encounters with hammerheads . Had a great night dive.
Details: Club Med diving: I bought the Club Med dive package that gives you six dives. Three boats a day 8:30, 8:45 ( both two tanks) and one at 2:30 (one tank). Each time you go on a boat use one of your dives. Most people want the early dives as you get two tanks. The 8:30 boat was full (43 divers) every day. Club Med has list of 40 sites which they rotate weekly. You know which site you will go to depending on the day of the week. I only brought my mask and used club Med equipment (included in package). Tanks are colored coordinated pink ( one dive) blue ( second dive), instructors use yellow tanks. Diving profile : first dive 130 feet (Computer)/ 100 (non-computer), second dive 70/50. Dive time 40- 45 minutes. Surface interval between dives is only 40 minutes. The Island has a wall that begins at 50 feet. The top of the wall is very dull with little coral, most of the action is on the wall. The Hammerheads and sharks are deep below 80 feet. Bring you computer as there is not much to see in the 50 feet range. Buddy divers can dive alone and get of the bot first, this is great for the way out, however on your way back to the boat you can go over the wall ( and 40 divers), or go back over a dull reef and sand (Which is what I did).
Algae: The coral is not in good shape. Several reefs are covered with green Alga. Some one published a problem with Algae on this newsgroup a few weeks before we left. I contacted Riding Rock Scuba and they denied. Well there is a lot of it. There was not a Marine life: lot of marine life that repeated it self from dive to dive. Groupers ( Nassau and Tiger) were friendly and you can pet them I saw a cleaning station on every dive. I saw my first (and only shark) on my first dive. I think they go away when they see 40 divers. The trigger fish were big and so were the angle fish. On each dive I saw a pair of file fish. Saw several turtles, one swam with me for a while. A few small rays, and tiny spotted eel, One big lobster ( walking during the day), two king crabs did not see moray eels, big rays, puffer fish , box fish etc. The big attraction in Columbus Island were the hammer heads. One couple saw them at 60 feet. A second group decided to go on a private diving excursion (only 6 divers) and paid and extra 95$. They saw three hammer heads. The night dive was great, the reef was alive the king crabs were walking around , a free swimming eel, a bug/butterfly , rays. Most of the group spent the entire dive with an octopus that performed on a coral head. My best dives - Caves and canyons. The sites LA Caravasse and Grouper Gully have several caves. My buddy in Grouper Gully was a person who knows the site well, and we went through caves the size of one diver.
Bottom Line A great place for vacation and novice divers, advanced divers get frustrated. If you go, do the one day excursion. Don't spend you entire tank looking for Hammer heads , dive the caves ( with some one that knows the reef).
