FISHES AND LOBSTERS AND SEA CUCUMBERS... OH MY
Diving has become our
most favored activity when we travel to a Sandals Resort, but because of COVID restrictions it almost did not happen on this trip to Jamaica. It wasn't until a week before our scheduled trip to Sandals South Coast in Whitehouse Jamaica that diving was finally allowed again. I had put in a lot of work and training during our last two visits to a Sandals in order to pass my PADI Open Water certification. I was finally able to just dive for the fun of it. We had already delayed this trip to Jamaica, my first to this island nation, for 6 months, hoping all the restrictions would finally relax, and luckily everything fell into place at the last minute. Timing IS everything.
DIVING IS EVERYTHING
Diving is an incredible sport which allows one to swim in the biodiverse world of coral reefs that teem with all sorts of fish
and other critters. It’s a safe sport, especially with the dive teams at every
Sandals watching over you. They are patient, attentive and helpful to all the
divers on their excursions, from the novice divers (like us), to those trying
to get certified, either for a resort certification or PADI Open Water
certification. Once certified it is a cheap sport, all equipment is provided by
Sandals except for an optional wetsuit that can be rented at a small price. We
wore UV shirts which worked perfectly in the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea.
We were looking forward
to this our third trip to a Sandals, not just for the location, food or drinks,
but for the diving. This was the first time I did not have to go through any
“certification” tests. I had already done my testing and taken the last of my “check-out”
dives when we were in The Bahamas.
Certification can be an intense endeavor, there
are a number of safety things you should know, like “am I running out of air,” but,
that was all completed and on this trip to Sandals South Coast in Jamaica I could finally just get in the water, follow the divemaster and marvel at the beauty of the
coral reefs. It would have been a huge disappointment had the COVID restrictions for diving not been lifted 
THE BACKBONE OF OUR EXISTENCE
Coral reefs only cover
1 percent of the world’s oceans, but 25% of the marine life live in the reefs. They
are the backbone of our shores, absorbing most of the surge of waves preventing
erosion of the shores and lessening the impact of storm surges and currents. The largest coral reef in the world is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, followed by Belize and then the Great Florida Reef which is the only coral reef in the United States.
Many of the dive sites at Sandals South Coast were just a few minutes off shore. Standing on the beach we could see waves breaking on the reefs.
Diving is a
“lazy-man’s” sport and once you get over the claustrophobia that some people
experience and not fear the occasional reef sharks that ponder the return on
investment in biting you and watching Moray Eels and spiny lobsters watching
you from their coral reef crevices or seeing an occasional manta ray flit out
from beneath the sand as you near it, and you relax and breathe easily through
your regulator, the diving experience is incredibly beautiful. The reefs teem
with fish and invertebrates and the living coral are majestic displays of
nature in a biodiverse universe only seen from under the water.
Most of the dive spots
in Jamaica are just a few minutes out from shore so it was possible to go on a
two-tank dive, meaning a first dive around 40-45 minutes at around 60 feet
depth and then another shorter and shallower dive, around 30 feet in depth after
a surface interval, and still be back at 11:30 and in time for lunch.
GOING WITH THE FLOW
All our dives in
Jamaica are “drift” dives which go with the current. This was a first for this
novice diver with the Sandals resort. In Antigua and the Bahamas, the dive
boats were anchored. We were taught to first swim against the current at the
beginning of the dive, this way you’re not fighting the current on the way back
and potentially running out of air… you see there is a pattern here.
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| COVID compliant Stringbean and Me |
Drift diving there
really is no swimming. Fins aren’t really used to propel, but just for buoyancy
control and we meandered behind the divemaster, Stringbean, who claimed to have
over 7,000 dives, and who pointed out things we might have missed, like a Moray
Eel giving us the evil eye, lobsters twitching from their coral crevices, a
stingray, a flounder, and a docile pufferfish that didn’t seem to mind being
petted gently. On the one day I didn’t dive, Janet’s Stringbean team saw a female
dolphin and her young calf. On another day we saw something out of a horror
film. Stretching out from a coral reef along the bottom was a Tiger Tail Sea
Cucumber. This long tube-like creature anchors itself inside the coral reef and
stretches out a good three feet to forage for food. Disturbed, the sea cucumber
rapidly recoils, before slowly inching out again. Some cultures each sea
cucumbers! UGH!
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| Tiger Tail Sea Cucumber |
The drift dives were quite
relaxing. We simply went along trailing behind the divemaster until it was time
to surface. On the deeper dives we always had to take a 3-minute safety stop at
15 feet below the surface to allow our bodies to acclimate with the surface
pressure. On the anchored dives at the other resorts there was always a safety
ladder to cling to, but on this drift dive we had to rely on our depth gauge or
simply watch the divemaster.
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| Happy Pufferfish |
Once it was time to
surface the divemaster would unfurl an inflatable surface buoy, we’d inflate
our vest and bob on the surface chatting about what we’d seen and admiring the
mountains of Jamaica and how the clouds were already gathering for the late
afternoon storms until the dive boat would swing by to pick us up.
Sandals also has
snorkeling adventures and sea kayaks, paddleboards and Hobie Cats for use on a
first come basis. On our surface day before we flew home we took out a sea kayak. THAT was more work than the scuba diving!
Because of the expertise
of the dive teams and the free equipment Sandals is going to be on our future
list of travel destinations.
Thanks for reading
Love Janet and greg
©
2021 by Greg Dunaj
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