Sunday, February 2, 2014

Watch out Key Largo, New Providence knows how to dive too

Since returning to Seamorr in January, we had yet to go diving. Our last dive was in Key Largo Florida, where they claim to be the "dive capital of the world" and are known for their crystal clear waters. I do agree, the diving was good and the water was sorta clear and we believed their claim could be true. Then we went diving on the south side of New Providence Island at Stuart's Cove. After 2 wreck dives (diving on shipwrecks are the coolest btw- nothing against reefs, but colourful fish get boring after a while) there was no question, no one in Key Largo had been here or it was simply false advertising. 


Our first dive was on a sunken Bahamian Royal Defence patrol boat that had been scuttled on purpose as a dive site (no one was on board when it went down). The boat lays on it's keel adjacent to a vertical wall that goes from 30ft to about 3,000ft, pretty much straight down into the tongue of the ocean. You are allowed to enter the wheelhouse and walk down the forward stair case into the crew quarters and up  through a ladder (you don't have to climb.. you can swim up it). 


The second dive was to the wreck of an old freighter that was trying to go from the north side of the island to the south side in the middle of the night. Spoiler alert! it's a shipwreck, so you can probably figure out it never made it all the way around. The crew misjudged their distance off of the reef and hit bottom, their momentum carried them off of the reef, thus exposing a massive hole in the hull to the ocean (think of the reef like a cork, plugging the hole it makes so not alot of water gets in. Then pull out the cork and voila- you have a new dive site). Next to this wreck is another ship that hit the same reef, it  was a wooden refugee ship from Haiti. All that remains of it are the engine blocks and propeller shafts amongst some scattered debris. Both of these wrecks are called "natural wrecks"… because they got to their final resting place "naturally" not by the owner of a dive boat company. 

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