Anaconda Swamp, Grand Bahama
Arek, my usual cave diving buddy, with whom I have shared so many dives, shows up at my work place and in his characteristic heavy accent affirms: "Today is a perfect day for cave dive in special cave!"
I look at the mat of gray sky, I listen to the constant rumbling of thunder all around us, I consider the heavy rain overflowing the gutters and I ask him to repeat.
Arek has a passion for exploration and this island is not short of possibilities, but you have to be ready for some work. And today is definitely that day.
We prepare our sidemount tanks, gas of choice is air. As we know that the cave reaches at least 100ft/30m, but it might go deeper, we bring our deco tanks. It takes a drive, and what a drive to get to the "swamp".
It is a low land, fresh water flooded area Arek thinks it’s home to an anaconda.
From the "parking" area to the dive area is only a 400 yard hike. The terrain? A mix of crumbly and sharp popcorn rock, made slippery by the rain, and partially flooded grassy grounds that give way to a floor of young mangrove trees. A mix of palm trees and sharp shrubs surround the circular hole.
Standing in knee high water I consider the entrance. The water from the hole appears to be overflowing into the surrounding swampy waters, but I know it must be an optical illusion.
The rain is still pouring; donning a dry suit in the truck is an art in itself. Today is a perfect day to dive the hole, but the rain makes logistics more difficult.
The need to don the drysuit ahead of time, zip it up is dictated by the chance of falling in the swamp while carrying the gear to the site. Using our harnesses for recreational diving we carry the tanks one at the time to the location.
In between I pause, listening to the surrounding sound of thunder searching for the crack of lightning, wondering if one will come this way as we are crossing or will be waiting for us when we surface. I was almost hit by lightening, and my heart rate still accelerates by any flash in the sky
I sit in two feet of water at the edge, and slide into the hole. I glance down unable to see my now invisible body. Water visibility is two feet at the most, the water is stained with a dark tannic acid, and slimy strings of algae surround every part of us. Testing the regulators is a fight between you and the algae. Today, the primary tie off is done European style, outside of the water, on a dead tree branch.
The descent... For what we can see, I might as well keep my cave light off, Arek's strong HID looks like an old, powerless halogen backup light, when I manage glimpses of it. Sometimes all I feel is the cave line he is deploying ahead of me. As I let my eyes get used to the red light, the cave takes shape. It is a sink hole, a heavy breakdown pile in the middle flutters with every movement of hands or fins; the line disappears into the sediment almost immediately. The walls are a fantastic picture of darkened beauty; stalactites hang everywhere, memories of a once dry cave. The walls are covered with decorations. Their counterparts, stalagmites have most likely been swallowed up by the secular deposit of dying vegetation. There is no garbage here. No fishing lines have left behind tangled in the tree branches; no one has discarded objects to be collected here by the tides. Humans are far away from this cave.
The tannic acid layer clears slightly; with the eyes adjusted to the now familiar red darkness I see the white walls of the cave behind the henna coloration of the water. Then, at 70 ft/21m the halocline. Deep is my first thought, I have never seen the halocline this deep, but then again we are far from the ocean. As Arek swims through it, I see the thick white layer, too light to descend deep into the salt water, too heavy to make it through the fresh water. The smell confirms my suspicion: hydrogen sulfide. I can almost taste it. This dictated the drysuit choice.
White draperies vibrate as Arek glides past them, bacterial growth now covers every inch of the ice caked stalactites. Like encrusting sponges you feel compelled to touch them just to verify their consistency. But there is no need to touch; the bubbles do the job for you and the white sulfide bacteria floats around us in space like lab experiments gone terribly wrong. This cave is surreal. The water is now crystal clear with only the percolation disturbing visibility.
Then Arek drops down even further. He is 1.5m/5ft below me and enters a small turn restriction. I wait. But for me my dive is over and so is Arek's. What we suspected we could find here is right in front of my eyes. I pause, look back at the line and the cave we have negotiated and then I look forward to what I will call our discovery. I have seen them before, not on this island. I know what to look for. There in the black sediment lay three or four bones. I watch, do not disturb and slowly look up to the small pile of debris to my left. Like in an Indiana Jones movie here it is: half a crocodile jaw, stuck in the sediment, upright, all the teeth in place with cranial bones around it. My heart beats faster, my cheeks flush... Arek is waiting below me; he cannot understand why I am pausing so long. I signal for him to swim back to me and together we just hover there admiring our finds. I cannot move. I do not want to move; I do not want to disturb it. This is amazing find. These crocodiles lived in the Bahamas before the arrival of men. National Geographic is heading for Abaco to document these findings and here we are looking at them. On Grand Bahama Island!
The dive is over, 97ft max depth, 48 minutes, 8 minutes deco in total...
I read somewhere that life is not about the destination, but about the journey.
This dive was everything for Arek and me. It was a journey. A very tiring journey of carrying gear, disturbing flashes of light, of heat and cold mixed together, and finally an unexpected destination.
We are in contact with scientists in the Bahamas who collect and study these remains. For now, the bones lie still on the bottom of this small passage, and maybe in the future they will be part of another amazing journey.
In the meantime, Arek and I will try to find more swampy locations that do not require a rainy, stormy day to be accessed.
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