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Snorkeling with Wild Dolphins in The Bahamas

Nick and Caroline Robertson-Brown

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There are few marine life encounters as special as snorkeling with wild dolphins. Nick and Caroline had an incredible afternoon in Bimini in The Bahamas watching a pod of dolphins feeding in the sand below, and coming up to inspect the snorkelers at the surface when they came up for air. There was even a baby dolphin sticking close by its mother’s side!

The experience was with Neal Watson’s Bimini Scuba Center. These dolphin tours are organised when the weather is just perfect and the sea flat and calm. On this trip they found Bottlenose Dolphins, but Nick and Caroline hope to return in 2021 to photograph the Atlantic Spotted Dolphins that this area is famous for.

You can read about the experience on our sister website, Scubaverse.com, by clicking here.

Nick and Caroline (Frogfish Photography) are a married couple of conservation driven underwater photo-journalists and authors. Both have honours degrees from Manchester University, in Environmental Biology and Biology respectively, with Nick being a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, a former high school science teacher with a DipEd in Teaching Studies. Caroline has an MSc in Animal Behaviour specializing in Caribbean Ecology. They are multiple award-winning photographers and along with 4 published books, feature regularly in the diving, wildlife and international press They are the Underwater Photography and Deputy Editors at Scubaverse and Dive Travel Adventures. Winners of the Caribbean Tourism Organization Photo-journalist of the Year for a feature on Shark Diving in The Bahamas, and they have been placed in every year they have entered. Nick and Caroline regularly use their free time to visit schools, both in the UK and on their travels, to discuss the important issues of marine conservation, sharks and plastic pollution. They are ambassadors for Sharks4Kids and founders of SeaStraw. They are Dive Ambassadors for The Islands of The Bahamas and they are supported by Mares, Paralenz, Nauticam and Olympus. To find out more visit www.frogfishphotography.com

Blogs

BVI Wreck Week – Diving (Part 3)

Nick and Caroline Robertson-Brown

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BVI Wreck Week allowed us to dive several of the wrecks the BVI has to offer, as well as sampling some of the best reef sites too. Our previous blog focused on the wreck of the RMS Rhone, so in this one we will try to give you a taste of the rest of the diving on offer.

And there is a great deal of wonderful diving to tell you about. Our first day of diving did not offer the best visibility due to heavy rain earlier in the week. However, we were taken to a rugged dive site that had Caribbean and Lemon Sharks swimming all around us. If we had been able to see the usual 20m+ I am sure we would have been able to talk of dozens of sharks on the site.

The BVI has plenty of artificial reefs, created from wrecks deliberately sunk. A couple of these are artistic creations from Beyond the Reef. The Willy T is a pirate themed party boat sunk in shallow water that now has skeletons of pirates duelling on the deck and going about their dastardly ways. It is a lot of fun and once you have had your fill, you can head up onto the shallow reef. Shark-plano is a series of three planes that were damaged in a hurricane, that have been turned into shark species and sunk. Both these sites are perfect for the diver that loves a bit of Instagram appeal!

Wreck Alley has a series of three boats sunk to create a super dive site perfectly aligned for a single dive where you can explore them all. Moray eels can be seen free swimming along the decks, huge stingrays back the sandy seabed their home. Turtles cruise past as you make your way around and then up onto the reef for your safety stop.

On every dive we did we saw sharks which absolutely delighted us. The local dive shops seem to be particularly engaged in conserving the reefs, taking part in coral reef restoration, lionfish hunting, cleanups and logging their sightings. We were filled with positivity at the end of each day.

We hope that we can return to do it all again at BVI Wreck Week 2024!

Watch out for our full feature on BVI Wreck Week in the next issue of Dive Travel Adventures coming out in July.

For more information about BVI Wreck Week 2024 visit their website here.


Nick and Caroline were hosted by BVI Wreck Week

The Moorings provided their yacht for the week

Host Dive Centres:

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Blogs

BVI Wreck Week – Diving the RMS Rhone (Part 2)

Nick and Caroline Robertson-Brown

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You cannot talk about BVI Wreck Week, or diving in the British Virgin Islands, without spending some time on the jewel in their crown of wreck diving – the RMS Rhone. So this blog is going to be dedicated to a wreck dive that we were happy to dive three times on our trip and would have been happy to dive every day!

The RMS Rhone was a UK Royal Mail Ship wrecked off the coast of Salt Island on 29 October 1867 in a deadly hurricane. Now it is the most popular dive site in the region. The dive briefings for the site are filled with stories of the fate of the ship and some eye-opening tales since.

The wreck and surrounding area become the British Virgin Island’s first national marine park in 1980. Many of the underwater segments of the 1977 thriller The Deep were filmed on the Rhone, requiring actors Jacqueline Bisset, Nick Nolte and Robert Shaw to learn how to scuba dive.

You’ll need at least two dives to fully experience the RMS Rhone. The ship split apart on sinking and the bow drifted just a little before sinking. The two halves are about 100 feet apart with the bow sitting in deeper water (around 25 meters / 80ft). So you are best to explore the bow fully on a single dive and then head to the stern on your second dive.

Whilst the history, artifacts and stories from the movies are absorbing, as soon as we got underwater to dive her, it was the incredible marine life that had us hooked. Two seahorses had made their home right at the bow of the wreck. Stingrays lay buried in the sandy sea bed. The structure is covered in colourful corals and sponges. Schools of fish occupy the overhangs and metal remains. We saw sharks on all three dives and were treated to a huge spotted eagle ray gliding over the wreck. Lobsters waved their antennae at us from every crevice. Life is everywhere you look on this dive.

The marine park status has certainly ensured that this is one of the best wrecks we have dived in the Caribbean. Whilst we did not get the chance to do this – we bet it would make an awesome night dive.

Check out our next blog to find out more about the diving and watch out for our full feature in the next edition of Dive Travel Adventures Magazine in July!

For more information about BVI Wreck Week 2024 visit their website here.


Nick and Caroline were hosted by BVI Wreck Week

The Moorings provided their yacht for the week

Host Dive Centres:

Continue Reading

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