Coming up, Jonathan and Cameraman Zach explore
a deep cave on the bottom of the ocean in the Bahamas! Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World! In recent years, I have become fascinated
with cave diving. I have been diving in caves in Mexico, caves
in Florida and caves in Abaco, Bahamas. They all have one thing in common: these caves
are accessed by land. But there are also caves on the bottom of
the ocean. So, I’m on my way to the Exumas, a beautiful
chain of Bahamian islands, to explore some ocean caves. The Zachs and I land on Grand Exuma, to begin
our grand adventure. The Exumas are located in the southern Bahamas,
a quick flight from Miami. They are known for being some of the most
beautiful islands in the world with super blue water and white sand beaches. But they’re also known for having lots of
ocean caves. We have brought all of our cave diving gear,
which makes for an impressive pile of luggage. Soon we’re off, and these are not the best
roads we have ever seen. We head over to Dive Exuma and meet owners
Tamara McGaw-Robinson and Jonathan Robinson. Hi Tamara! Hi Jonathan, how you doing? Good how are you? Are you ready to go diving? Let’s go! Jonathan is the boat captain and today, also
the divemaster! Zach and I start setting up our gear while
we wait for the rest of the divers to show up. Soon everyone else is here, and Captain Jonathan—I
like the sound of that—gives us quick boat briefing. Then its time to push off. We only have a ten minute ride to the dive
site which is near Stocking Island just across the bay. Stocking Island has a picture perfect bay,
providing safe anchorage for a bunch of sailboats. But right in the middle of this bay is a blue
hole—an underwater cave entrance. Captain Jonathan gives the group a dive briefing. Most of the divers on the boat are not cave
divers. So they are only going to see the cavern section
where they can see daylight. Cameraman Zach and I however, brought full
sidemount cave gear to do a deeper inspection. It seems weird to be donning this stuff on
a boat. Cave diving and boat diving, we’re going
cave diving from a boat! Once all the open water divers have hit the
water, we gear up. I’ve never done a water entry from a boat
with sidemount gear, so here it goes! Graceful. It has been really windy recently, so the
visibility is a little murky, but as we sink down, we immediately find the huge yawning
mouth of the blue hole. Zach leads the charge as we sink into the
deep. Heading down, we pass one of the other divers. As it gets darker, we start switching on our
video lights. As the opening narrows, we can feel the strong
rush of water coming out of the cave. Ocean caves are tidal, which means sometimes
water is rushing out, and other times it’s rushing in. You never want to dive one of these caves
when the water is rushing in, because it might suck you in, and you won’t be able to get
out. This is about as far as the other divers can
go, with the light of day visible so they know the way out. Zach stops to film the cave walls. Unlike the bare rock walls of inland caves,
ocean caves are full of encrusting marine life on every surface, like hydroids and sponges. It can be very sharp and some of it stings
so we definitely wear gloves. Some of the sponges are quite colorful and
beautiful. This encrusting life even grows on the cave
line. We struggle upstream in the current. It’s over a hundred feet deep and we are
exerting ourselves, so this kind of dive can be dangerous. I can hardly hold myself in position for a
shot kneeling on the bottom. I’m really glad this current is trying to
push me out of the cave, not the other way around. Forget about the classic cave diving frog
kick, I need to kick as hard as I can to make forward progress. Fortunately, all the silt I’m kicking up
goes immediately downstream. We discover why the cave line in this cave
is not just a thin string, but a thick rope. Sometimes you need it to get around a corner! After fighting our way into the cave for 20
minutes, we finally turn around and enjoy floating out with the current. So easy and relaxing! The strong current through these tunnels coming
from somewhere deep out in the ocean, brings a constant supply of nutrients from the open
ocean to feed all the creatures growing on the walls, floor and ceiling. It takes barely 90 seconds to get back to
the cavern zone where I can see light from the sun and a school of parrotfish. Captain Jonathan is standing there waiting
for us like Aquaman. The current shoots us up and out of the blue
hole. In fact we have to be careful not to ascend
too fast. Zach stops to film some fish. We both have decompression stops to do. The dive wasn’t long but it was deep. We slowly make our way up into the shallows. There isn’t much to see in this small bay. Finally we surface at the stern of the boat. Woo! Man, that was quite a ride! Zach still with me? There he is. We pass our tanks up, having completed our
first ocean cave dive! But that’s not all we are going to see today. Captain Jonathan has another neat cave to
show us. We take another ten minute ride across the
bay to a secret spot, and suit up again. In just 15 feet of water, there’s a small
crack in the bottom. It’s tiny! But with sidemount gear, we can sneak in there. Zach goes first to investigate, leaving his
camera behind. The flow out of this crack is amazing. He can barely make headway. A minute later he comes back up and it’s
my turn. He passes me my camera and I head down, light
rays bouncing off the sides. When I get to the bottom, I’m in a super
narrow cavern zone. I can’t go very far before the passage is
too small but I do find a lobster hotel, full of tons of huge spiny lobsters. Then I turn and head back up towards the sun. I emerge super excited just because that was
a really cool experience! Ocean caves are extremely different from inland
caves, subject to tidal flows which can change direction, and full of marine life decorating
the walls. They can be a lot of work to explore, but
so satisfying as well. Fortunately we have several more blue holes
to explore on Exuma, so the fun isn’t over yet in the Blue World! Hey everyone! Thanks for watching our latest episode all
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