Blue Hole Diving

[TracyN]

I would love to take a dive trip down to the Bahamas and I've noticed that they have these blue holes to dive. Has anyone ever dived any of them and do you have to be full cave in order to dive them?

[Slüdge]

http://www.bahamasunderground.com/home.html

Brian is on our forum.

[moody]

I would love to take a dive trip down to the Bahamas and I've noticed that they have these blue holes to dive. Has anyone ever dived any of them and do you have to be full cave in order to dive them?

I dove the one in Nassau in Nov. It was a terrible and uneventful dive. There is no overhead, essentially you drop down to about 30ft where the hole starts, it's about 200ft across and you drop down swimming in circles looking at absolutely nothing until you hit 130ft and then you head up. Poor vis, no marine life, no interesting coral or rock formations. The only dive op that heads out that way was very unimpressive as well, you do it as part of a 2 dive package, the 2nd dive is place called Barracuda Reef, not even worth the gas to dive it. 2 small coral outcrops that are 15ft deep if you bury your hand in the sand! That having been said the ones on Abaco are a completely different story, and Brian Kakuk is definitely the man when it comes to that stuff, he also has the only o2 booster on the islands, does guiding if you are cave certified and courses if you aren't.

[phillip1]

the Bahamas is on all of our (the DR crew) list of must dives in 2012. Brians pics of the blue holes and caves there are mindblowing.

thomas and i dove a blue hole in Jamaica in 2009 and it was prety much the same as you described above except in had a lot of weird jellyfish swimming around and the viz was not that bad, no cave though.

[Bobby]

The farther south you go the better and deeper the blue holes get. You do not need to be cave certified to dive the majority of them unless you are doing very deep dives. As has been said Brian is the go to person for the Bahamas and can get you hooked up with any level of diving you are qualified and wanting to do.

[Danseur]

Hmmm, but Abaco is the furthest North, next down Eluthra, with a blue hole in the south...

The big, I mean HUGE, "gotcha" is MANY of these turn into monster siphons, ala Black Hole.

Watch the tides like your life depends on it; it does. Also, many things can delay tides for hours down there.

You really should call Brian... If he's off island, call Christina @Unexo in Freeport.

[Brian Kakuk]

I would love to take a dive trip down to the Bahamas and I've noticed that they have these blue holes to dive. Has anyone ever dived any of them and do you have to be full cave in order to dive them?

Hi TracyN, There are plenty of places here in the Bahamas where open water divers can experience safe blue hole dives that are not considered cave dives. If you want to experience a blue hole or two AND do some fantastic reef diving in the same week, I would highly suggest Small Hope Bay Lodge on Andros Island www.smallhope.com I am headed there next week for MY vacation!

Another great place is in the city of Freeport, on Grand Bahama Island www.unexso.com
Cristina Zenato runs the diving at a big diving facility called UNEXSO, and she does cavern tours in awesome caves called Mermaids Lair and Ben's Cave both about 40 minute drive from Freeport. My company also does cavern dives here on Abaco, but is more tapered toward the trained cave diver or those who wish to become trained....you can PM me if you require more information at bahamacave@aol.com
Best of luck in your search TracyN and enjoy our amazing islands! Safe diving,
Brian

[TracyN]

Hi TracyN, There are plenty of places here in the Bahamas where open water divers can experience safe blue hole dives that are not considered cave dives. If you want to experience a blue hole or two AND do some fantastic reef diving in the same week, I would highly suggest Small Hope Bay Lodge on Andros Island www.smallhope.com I am headed there next week for MY vacation!

Another great place is in the city of Freeport, on Grand Bahama Island www.unexso.com
Cristina Zenato runs the diving at a big diving facility called UNEXSO, and she does cavern tours in awesome caves called Mermaids Lair and Ben's Cave both about 40 minute drive from Freeport. My company also does cavern dives here on Abaco, but is more tapered toward the trained cave diver or those who wish to become trained....you can PM me if you require more information at bahamacave@aol.com
Best of luck in your search TracyN and enjoy our amazing islands! Safe diving,
Brian

Thanks Brian. I will be certain to look you up if I decide to go down there.

[TJDiver]

I dove the one in Nassau in Nov. It was a terrible and uneventful dive. There is no overhead, essentially you drop down to about 30ft where the hole starts, it's about 200ft across and you drop down swimming in circles looking at absolutely nothing until you hit 130ft and then you head up. Poor vis, no marine life, no interesting coral or rock formations. The only dive op that heads out that way was very unimpressive as well, you do it as part of a 2 dive package, the 2nd dive is place called Barracuda Reef, not even worth the gas to dive it. 2 small coral outcrops that are 15ft deep if you bury your hand in the sand! That having been said the ones on Abaco are a completely different story, and Brian Kakuk is definitely the man when it comes to that stuff, he also has the only o2 booster on the islands, does guiding if you are cave certified and courses if you aren't.

My son and I took a Blackbeard's liveaboard trip two years ago, and that was our last dive of the trip as we were heading back to port. There were upwards of 60 silky sharks at the site...some circling the rim...but, the majority of them were down in the hole. We descended down thru the swarm, and found ourselves completely surrounded by sharks...above, below, and on all sides. Here is a very short video clip that gives an idea.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2eTRT0crEc&list=UU3q-2wJ6LoQUTTi0nyEGsOw&index=22&feature=plcp

Also, a video of a ray we saw near the rim there.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6NSCv2DdPQ&list=UU3q-2wJ6LoQUTTi0nyEGsOw&index=21&feature=plcp

[moody]

My son and I took a Blackbeard's liveaboard trip two years ago, and that was our last dive of the trip as we were heading back to port. There were upwards of 60 silky sharks at the site...some circling the rim...but, the majority of them were down in the hole. We descended down thru the swarm, and found ourselves completely surrounded by sharks...above, below, and on all sides. Here is a very short video clip that gives an idea.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2eTRT0crEc&list=UU3q-2wJ6LoQUTTi0nyEGsOw&index=22&feature=plcp

Also, a video of a ray we saw near the rim there.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6NSCv2DdPQ&list=UU3q-2wJ6LoQUTTi0nyEGsOw&index=21&feature=plcp

That looks pretty awesome, perhaps it is a seasonal issue, I was there in Nov, what time of year were you there?

[Me]

I have to agree with some of the others, that a blue hole dive is kind of a "BTDT, I got the t-shirt" dive. Something to tick off your list. I did the blue hole in Belize about five years ago and found it to be worth ONE dive. Those that were open water certified thought it was fantastic, my late BF and I, who were/are full cave thought it interesting for one dive. The dive plan was to drop to 100ft max, swim around for X minutes, rise to safety stop and surface. The funny part of the dive....my BF and I were literally "catching" newbie divers who were plummeting like bricks and would have far exceeded the 100 ft max depth if we hadn't have caught them. To say the least, the dive op DM's looked very relieved when we caught some of them as they had their hands full with the majority of the divers.

[Slüdge]

I did the blue hole in Belize about five years ago and found it to be worth ONE dive.

That's exactly one dive more than I thought it was worth.

But the "blue hole dives" Brian does are a completely different thing.

[TJDiver]

That looks pretty awesome, perhaps it is a seasonal issue, I was there in Nov, what time of year were you there?

We were there in June. We were taking a vote on what would be our last dive, when we got a call from another boat informing us of the large number of sharks at the blue hole. We were told there are normally just a few sharks there (maybe as many as a dozen), and none of our crew or passengers had any clue as to why there were so many there that day. Most were down in the hole, and the remainder...maybe a couple dozen...were continously circling the rim. It was a pretty impressive sight.