Captain Bob's   Sunday morning we woke to a smiling Todd knocking on the door (nobody had a travel alarm) and stumbled down the street to Captain Bob's Restaurant, where his widow Mrs. Bonnie poured us seven pale tourists coffee and took our orders. Captain Bob's is a dark double storefront facing the harbor, covered in hundreds of 8x10 glossies featuring swordfish, grouper and shark on the back of several different sportfish boats. Captain Bob was a champion prizefish guide and his trophies line the room. After a butter-laden breakfast made better by good humor and a sense of excitement, we walked back to our rooms, gathered gear, and met at the boat at 9:15.
 		  
  The diveboat   Our vessel was an open-decked 32-ft. cruiser with several racks of tanks and a pilot bridge, and Audley and Melanie suited us up quickly with gear. We spent a good portion of time revising the dive plan, and finally left the sunny dock at quarter to ten.
 		  
  Big ol' grouper sitting in the current   Our first dive was Rainbow Reef, a shallow 25-ft. cluster of coral surrounding a fallen, headless statue of Jesus left by a group of Canadian marine biologists. The site was a cloud of fish in various sizes, mostly younger ages, and assorted other species, including eels, lobster, and a sleeping nurse shark. I descended slowly and tried to gather my focus, concentrating on careful monitoring of my air, depth and visibility, as well as snapping pictures of everything I could see. The hour we spent at the site went by in about fifteen minutes, and we all ascended excited and chattering about the fish we saw. The second dive was led by Melanie, and she tried to point out the things Audley didn't.
 		  
  Swarms of fish

More schooling behavior

   We returned to the dock by two in the afternoon and attempted to rustle up some food, which wound up taking over an hour for four club sandwiches and a grilled cheese; the off-season accomodations on Bimini are spartan and easily taxed. For our third dive of the day, Melanie took us to The Strip, a longer and deeper reef near Rainbow where the fish gather in clouds that block out the surface. Yellowtailed Snapper sat in swarms around the fan coral, gently swaying back and forth in the breeze. Mixed in with them were squirrelfish, which look white but show up as red in light, and throughout the coral were Moray eels in different sizes and colors.
 

continue ->