BootsnAll Travel Network



Into Blue Hole

Into Blue Hole

Off Shacks Beach there is a place known as Blue Hole.

From the deck of the rental houses along the beach the “highway” through the reef to get to it is visible, obvious. From the ground or in the water, you have to take your cues from the reef itself.

Start on the beach east of all the rental units on a little ledge of rock (not reef). In the water you snorkel out northwest, keeping clear sand below you and reef on both sides. A hundred-and-fifty to two hundred meters out, you run into a reef wall. At low tide there is less than a meter of water over the reef here. Swim over the 2 meters or so of reef and…

You go over the edge into Blue Hole. The reef wall becomes a cliff and the ocean bottom drops away 10 meters or more below you. The water is a deep, uniquely ocean blue. When it’s clear, you can practically count the grains of sand on the bottom.

But the reef’s edges are where the interesting things happen. Fish – scores of them – feed along the reef. Blue tang, bluehead wrass, yellowtail damsel fish. Fan coral wave in the current. Two giant brain coral dominate one corner of the Hole (this is your brain on drugs; this is your brain on the reef)

To experienced divers/snorkelers/travelers this is redundant, but I’ll say it anyway – the reef is a living thing, a living being. DON’T TOUCH IT. Don’t hang on it, don’t stand on it, don’t kick it with a fin. Watch it and all the vibrant, beautiful life that lives on it and near it, but please, please don’t touch the reef. Off my soapbox now.

 



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