Abaco, Bahamas

I just finished 5 days of diving in Abaco, with Brian Kakuk. I had seen several videos, but they do not do the caves justice!

We started off in Dan's cave, going to Crystal Palace. it was as nice as anything else I have seen in any other island in the Bahamas, or Mexico.

Then we went to Ralph's cave, Hollis cave (aka Lost Reel), and an ocean cave called Reel Breaker. The variety is amazing. One minute you are in big breakdown, like in Florida, the next minute you are in delicate formations.

It is really scary threading your way through such beautiful, and fragile formations, knowing one second of gawking could cause you to run into a stalactite, and break it off. There were places we were between stalagmites on the floor, and stalactites on the ceiling, with only inches of clearance. There are places to go that aren't so tight, if you don't feel comfortable doing that.

We stayed in a small cottage 200 feet from the dive shop (Bahamas Underground). It has a small kitchenette, and refrigerator, so we made our own breakfast and dinners. It saves a lot of money, since restaurants are pretty expensive here. It was great since Ken and I are mostly interested in cavediving. If you are into shopping, or night life, you might want to stay in a hotel in town, or get a different hobby

Brian is a great guide, and goes out of his way to ensure the divers get to see what they are interested in. Ken and I like variety, so we dove several sites, but he said there were some content to dive the same cave for a week. You wouldn't get bored doing that, because it is a big cave!

The dives were all too deep for my "water resistant to 10 meters" camera, but there are pictures and videos on www.bahamasunderground.com

Cool Forrest! I'm glad you had a great time!

I meant to list some of the things we saw. Aside from the usual formations like stalactites and stalagmites, we saw helictites, rimestone dams, translucent formations, calcified bat skeleton, ancient crocodile skeleton, cave "popcorn", and calcite crystals. In the ocean cave we saw all manner of sponges, lobster, and other marine life you would normally see on a reef, except it was all over the cave walls, and the line.

Most of these caves can easily be done sidemount, but there are some really neat things that require sidemount, with very good bouyancy and trim skills.

Cool! That is atrip that is tops on my list.

Sounds like a wonderful trip. Abaco is on my short list. Thanks for sharing.

If I ever go sidemount, I'll be headed there. From what I have heard, it would be sad to go there and settle for what you can see on backmount.

i could not get the link to load :roll: but i loved your trip report.
ww

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Originally Posted by FW

I meant to list some of the things we saw. Aside from the usual formations like stalactites and stalagmites, we saw helictites, rimestone dams, translucent formations, calcified bat skeleton, ancient crocodile skeleton, cave "popcorn", and calcite crystals. In the ocean cave we saw all manner of sponges, lobster, and other marine life you would normally see on a reef, except it was all over the cave walls, and the line.

Most of these caves can easily be done sidemount, but there are some really neat things that require sidemount, with very good bouyancy and trim skills.

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Thanks Forrest,
It was really great to have you and Ken out here for the week. I love showing off some of the new discoveries and cool formations. I really enjoyed tracking the EM cave pinger that Ken designed. These are really going to help us in proving the footprint of the of the caves within our proposed blue holes national park! Thanks again for coming out and showing me your sump cave harness.

Safe diving,
Brian

Ok, so you were in Abaco diving with Ken..... got it. I can't wait to start living a life of the rich and famous, with a pinger. I'm happy for ya.

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Originally Posted by scubamountaingirl

i could not get the link to load :roll: but i loved your trip report.
ww

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Forrest made a typo. Here's the correct link:

http://www.bahamasunderground.com/

(now I'll go back and fix his original post)

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Originally Posted by Squirrel Girl

Forrest made a typo. Here's the correct link:

http://www.bahamasunderground.com/

(now I'll go back and fix his original post)

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Thanks! I guess my mind was on diving, not typing :-D