Eleuthera and Harbour Island Bahamas -- Part II
Posted By Branon Edwards on 21 August 2003
Okay, so we’ve talked about some of the fun things for the family… how about the diving?!
My first dive trip was an afternoon dive with
Valentine’s Dive Center, a long-time PADI dive resort. Owners Laura
and Chris Bartenfelder pride themselves on running a tight ship. In fact,
they run two tight ships – a 2001 Seahawk custom-made 38-foot dive boat and
a 2000 32-foot center-console Island Hopper. Laura and Chris took over this
25-year-old operation in 1999. Laura is originally from the U.K. and met
Chris after living in Southeast Asia, South America, and finally settling in
the Bahamas. Our crew for both trips with Valentine’s included native
Bahamian Captain Devon Stewart (Nassau) and 
Divemaster/Instructor Scott Thompson (Ithaca, NY by way of Key Largo). Our
first dive was at a site called Potatoes & Onions Shipwreck in a treacherous
patch of barrier reef called Devil’s Backbone. This natural shipwreck was,
oddly enough, carrying potatoes and onions when it sank decades ago. It’s a
great starter dive and an easy snorkel even for beginners. The site includes
swim-through opportunities at the ship’s turbines as well as a nice
leisurely swim across the reef. Also during our trips, Scott swore us to
secrecy and shared a fairly unknown cavern system that runs several hundred
yards under a reef through winding turns, schools of silversides, and
amazing structure with light shimmering through portholes in the reef above.
Scott followed PADI Divemaster protocols and made sure that each diver was
completely informed, safe, and comfortable throughout the dive. We saw
mutton snapper, parrotfish, turtles, barracuda, stingrays, and even a nurse
shark sleeping under a small ledge.
Our second dive trip with Valentine’s was at Miller’s Reef – just offshore in the Atlantic in 60-130 feet of water. This dive features incredible reef structure, plenty of fish life, and even a small one-way cave at the bottom. On this dive, we saw more turtles, grouper, and perhaps the largest midnight parrotfish I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, my buddy during this dive was a heavy-breather and I ended up sharing my octopus with him for our 3-minute safety stop. Our second tank was spent at the Sea Gardens, a shallow reef almost in the middle of the inlet. This site was teaming with yellowtail snapper, who are so used to divers that you have to actually push them out of your way from time to time. By hand, I nearly caught a small grouper that was following me during the first half of my hour-long dive. The elkhorn coral at this site was among the most healthy I’ve seen in a very long time and well worth the trip. By the way, divemasters at Valentine’s are also underwater videographers if you’d like to capture your adventures digitally.
Our last dive of the trip was with Ocean Fox Diving with Dr. Andy Leggett, a British doctor of Philosophy who gave up teaching for life undersea. While you probably won’t be talking about Aristotelian Ethics during your dives, Andy certainly knows how to provide an adrenaline rush. Our trip to Current Cut was truly amazing. Superman had nothing on me as I was soaring at 5 knots along the sea bottom through a narrow high-flow channel on the far side of Eleuthera. We made 3 drops and each was more amazing than the last.
- Bookmark with :
- what are these?
