Adam’s blog day 5

Alex and I are now on San Salvador island, being hosted by Riding Rock Resort and diving with them and Club Med around the corner. The Marina is very close to the hotel, but with all the camera gear we were carrying, we had to arrange to get a lift over to it.

Our fellow divers today included two families with children, and the excitement was at fever pitch during Captain Bruce’s briefing for the dive at a site called North Pole caves about 35 minutes boat ride away. Perhaps the biggest contrast between our journey through the Bahamian Islands and that of the other shooters involved in the veent is that we are diving off “normal” boats with enthusiastic vacation divers. Coming from a background of diving a lot with fellow pros, it is really refreshing and invigorating to see their fascination with the amazing marine environment that they are visiting.

They were pretty excited about it on their safety stop after the dive too!

Alex remained calm however.

In common with many of the sites in the area, it features caves and swim throughs along the drop off, which starts at around 12m. The sites are all very pretty, with plentiful hard and soft corals and lots of life throughout. We spent some time shooting some schools of blue striped (Haemulon sciurus) and ceasars (Haemulon carbonarium) grunts.

The second dive was at Telegraph Pole wall, and features two tame Nassau groupers (Epinephelus striatus) known as Tom and Jerry. These caused huge excitement among the younger members of the party.

In addition, there were also several Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi) cruising along the reef.

There was no feeding on these dives, so the interactions felt very natural.

Captain Bruce was planning a night dive, and hence no afternoon dive, so rather than not dive, we contacted Club Med, who kindly fitted us in on one of their snorkelling boat for a shallow afternoon dive.

Alex found plentiful macro subjects to shoot, and while wide-angle was more challenging, there was some lovely healthy coral and clear blue water…

And if all else failed, there was always Alex to shoot!

We returned back to Riding Rock for our evening meal, before setting out for the night dive.

This was a return to Telegraph Pole wall, and once again, the Nassau groupers were in attendance, as were the sharks.

Once again, there was a plethora of macro critters for Alex to shoot, including several that he has never seen before.

Tomorrow, we move over to Club Med for all our diving. We’ll report back on what we see tomorrow evening.

1. Introduction.
2. Adam’s blog day 5
3. Abi on Deep Water Cay
4. Adam’s blog day 6
5. Abi at Green Turtle Cay
6. Abi at Green Turtle Cay day 2
7. Adam’s blog day 7
8. Adam’s blog day 8