Abacos Beach Resort, Bahamas

Author: Duncan

The Abacos in the Bahamas are probably not first on anyone's list of dive sites. But if your like my buddy and me and also like sailing, it is a very good place to do both.

Our trip took place in late March, 1999. I am a professor at a law school, and that is when we have spring break. We stayed at the Abacos Beach Resort near Marsh Harbor the first three nights. It is a well run resort with an excellent restaurant. We dove with the dive shop at the resort (The Abacos Beach Resort Dive Center). It was not nearly up to the standards of what I have experienced in Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Nonetheless, the staff was very accommodating, and on the whole provided us with a good dive experience. I also did not have the sense that the other dive shops were any better from what I could see from the outside. For example, the boat had good cover from the sun (or rain), which did not seem to be the case for other dive boats I saw.

The dive shop was a little loose with their standards. For example, everyone dove Nitrox the first dive, the first day, even those (like my buddy) who were not certified. They used 32% (or so we were told, since we were not given the opportunity to double check this, which is typical for other dive organizations). It would have taken a shovel on our first dive to get into any likely trouble with that mix, but still...(Incidently, it is the only dive shop in the Abacos with Nitrox).

The dive boat was organized in an unusual way. The tanks were stacked at the end of the boat, with Bc's attached. When it was your turn to dive, you walked to the dive platform, typically with the fins already on, they put the tank on you, and in you went. The problem was that I tended to feel a little rushed, and I never had the as much time as I would have preferred to check my gear.

The first day made me think the trip was going to be a bust for diving. The plan was to dive a wreck at 117 feet (as it turned out about twice the depth of any other dive we would do). The only problem was the mooring ball had sunk and they could not find it. They towed a dive instructor behind us for about an hour until they found the wreck. In we went. The water was COLD! It was 72 degrees, and my 3/2 shorty was not even close to being enough, especially given the thin, aging (pushing 47) soul that I am. I was trying a Scuda for the first time. I ended up liking the Scuda a lot (though in a current I preferred to keep it in my BC pocket, using a 2 foot extension tube), but the Scuda hose had become disconnected on the first dive (see feeling rushed above), and I was not able to get it fixed during the dive, so I breathed wet. There was quite a current (common in the Bahamas) and even though I am an pretty good shape for an old fart, I was out of breath by the time I got to the anchor line at the front of the boat. I then went down and promptly overbreathed my reg. I had to come back to the surface, remember how to adjust the reg (my brain had slowed down from the cold water), and then go back down (making the dive master a little nervous in the interim).

My buddy was also a little nervous since he had never been below 90 feet before and this was his first dive in a year. However, the rented 3 mil kept him warm enough. I am only six months older and just a tad thinner, but he handles the cold a lot better. We got down to look at an uninteresting wreck (but then I don't like wrecks much), when one of the divers loses her weight belt. Luckily, she was able to grab on to the wreck. I held her leg, while a DM recovered the belt and she put it back on.

We then took a long break. We had lunch on Guana Cay at Nippers, well known locally as a part place. Guana Cay had a beautiful beach. The owner of the shop drank alcohol during the break and generally held us up, so it was over two hours before we got back on the boat. Before the second dive, Ricardo, the Bahamian dive master, lent me his 7 mm long sleeve shorty which I wore over my 3/2. It helped a lot. In fact, he let me use it the rest of the trip without charge (though, I, of course, gave Ricardo an extra tip at the end).This was one of many times the employees of the dive shop went the extra mile for us. They also did not charge us for everything they could have. The second dive was to the Cathedral, depending how you look at it, a cave with a lot of holes, or a more confined swim-through. The light shined into this area in a neat way, but there was not a lot of life, my favorite thing to see. At this point I was feeling disheartened about the whole trip.

Just as hope was fading we got a very good dive on day two, in a place the dive shop called The Towers, and we think what Rodale's referred to as Wayne's World. We say a black tip reef shark, two nurse sharks, an eagle ray, and an assortment of other fish. Everyone liked this dive. This was followed by decent afternoon dive at a shallow site (33 feet) where we saw lobster and sting rays.

The next day we dove at decent dive sites, Grouper Alley (a lot of surge made it a challenging swim) where a decent sized turtle swam through our group, and Caverns, a shallow site where we dove in the afternoon and to which we returned for a night dive. However, the best diving was, in some respects, yet to come.

In the interim we had picked up the sailboat (from which the dive boat picked us up on day 3). We now rented four tanks and headed for Sandy Cay. To the windward side is an underwater park where no fishing is allowed. We did one dive on each of two days and spent much of the rest of the time sailing. We anchored the boat on the leeward side, and took a motorized a dingy over to the dive site, which had convenient, day-moorings available. This was the first time either of us had been diving without a dive master at least on the boat. We had a great time. The diving was shallow (around 20 feet) and fantastic. If you ever go to the Bahamas, do not miss this site, which we had not found discussed prior to our trip. The coral life reminded me of the east end of Grand Cayman. Life abounded. We say a turtle, damsel fish, stoplight parrots, trumpet fish, and on the second trip a family of eagle rays. There was a mild current the first day, and a very strong current the second day. We fought our way up the current for maybe 15 minutes at the beginning second dive, and flew back in about a tenth that time on the return. I learned a lot about current diving in the Bahamas.

All in all, we were very happy with our trip.

Good diving!

Duncan