Diving the Rum Cay Wall

Saturday, 15 June 2013





Saturday morning the wind was calm, and my sailing friends left for San Salvador. As much as I want to go to San Salvador, they are running a tighter schedule than I have to, and I've got two more things I want to do here.





First, Bobby promised to make me a turtle, and that is worth waiting for! Later, we're going to take the Whaler around to a beach with scattered bleached and dead coral, where storms have littered the beaches with them, and I promised I'd help gather...





Secondly, I've always wanted to dive around Rum Cay, and I'm here, this is my chance.





The reason I didn't move out to anchor, Bobby has assured me that there is room for my boat here as long as I decide to stay. I was concerned about this, as he was expecting some large sportfishing boats to come in.





I took the Whaler and went meandering along the wall, marking a few places that looked good on the gps. Then I spotted two mooring balls, that I promptly investigated. I about shouted when I circled the one, the bottom looked perfect!





After putting out a granny line, I slipped into the crystal clear water, and could readily see a submerged float on the top of a head on the bottom, to help aid in underwater navigation, and a float for a safety stop.





There was very little current, and I checked the line and the attachments before going though a coral rock tunnel that opened out onto the wall. The view out that tunnel was spectacular! I exited the tunnel and journeyed across the wall face until I found another cut, coming back to the inside.





On a lot of walls, their is a fringing coral growth along the tops of the walls, so as you are approaching the wall from the shore, the bottom actually rises before it drops off the wall. My ideal bottom is sand chutes with coral ridges running perpendicular to shore, that end in the wall coral, with tunnels where you can pass through. This was my perfect place!





I dove the wall, and then eased over to the large coral patch the mooring line was chained into. The float on the top of the coral made navigation a snap, since the visibility was so spectacular.





I saw a couple of Caribbean reef sharks, and tons of smaller tropical fish. There was a pretty good diversity of coral, and I was delighted with the geographic structure of the dive. While I was waiting at my safety stop, along the line, I noticed a huge patch of sargassum weed drifting by. I hoped to see some big cruising fish, but did not. In the past few days, the fishermen have caught wahoo and blue marline along this coast, to say nothing of dolphin that routinely hang under the sargassum.





After the dive, I continued up the coast, enjoying watching the surf from the ocean side. The weather and water was awesome! I looked for a cut in the reef to get through to the salt pond, but was unwilling to attempt it with the surf.





Then I returned to the inside of the breakers out from the harbor, and snorkeled for awhile on some patch reefs. Then I made a short, 30' dive to check out one of the patch reefs and use the air in my tank down to 500 psi. When I dropped the hook, it settled on the bottom in sand, and I was amazed how tiny it looked. What I had hoped might be conch along the bottom would have been 20" across to have seen them.





I had watched a rain cloud forming all morning over Rum Cay, and I raced back to the boat to close hatches, arriving during sprinkles, just in time to close hatches before the heavy rains. I was already wet from diving, so it was a great time to collect rain water. I rinsed dive gear, topped my water tanks off, scrubbed the Whaler down, and eventually went inside and took a hot shower before re-topping the water tank off. I think that is the ultimate perfect way to end a day of diving!





The sun came out, and my fresh-showered, clean clothed self ambled out to catch lines for Ben, the Bahamian captain bringing in the sportfishing yacht with the owners aboard. They had missed out on the rain altogether.





Later that evening, I watched the sharks gather, patiently waiting for fish scraps and carcasses from the fish cleaning table.





Bobby had been surfing with some guests on the other side of the island, and he was back to pet a couple of nurse sharks that come up on the shore to get a morsel. It's a pretty good show!





Another great day in Rum Cay!