ANDROS
Andros Island, otherwise known as The Big Back Yard, is the largest landmass in the
Bahamas and the largest tract of unexplored land in the Caribbean at 3750 sq miles. Located almost midway down the Bahamas, Andros is 30 miles southwest of Nassau across the deep Tongue of the Ocean trench. The island is approximately 100 miles long by 40 miles at its widest point, aligned in a north-south direction.
Although referred to as an island, Andros is actually a complex series of low-lying areas dissected by thousands of creeks and riddled with lakes. There are three major landmasses separated by two winding shallow bights. Andros is dominated by thick impenetrable bush with mangrove-edged waterways and isolated lagoons, but to the north of the major landmass are pine forests of Andros pine, mahogany and lignum vitae.
DIVING
Of special interest to divers is the eastern seaboard of Andros, which has reputedly the third longest barrier reef in the world 167 miles long, running parallel to the coast.
This is a massive, almost impenetrable inner barrier of Elkhorn coral which takes the brunt of bad weather and stormy seas, but it is the outer edge of the wall which divers come to see. Here it drops 6000ft into the Tongue of the Ocean with spectacular canyons, sand chutes, caves, caverns and blue holes.
Andros has the highest concentration of blue holes anywhere in the Bahamas. For the most part, these are gigantic caverns filled with stalactites and stalagmites. The Ocean Blue Hole in north Andros is particularly well known, with divers entering a gloomy world of spurious, green-tinged water (you can even smell the sulphur underwater, trough your facemask). There are shallow blue holes within the inner barrier reef as well massive sink holes within the island, the majority of which are unexplored, with virtually all of them connecting. In the extreme conditions met during the exploration of these caverns, a number of divers have sadly lost their lives, and therefore it is imperative that proper instruction with qualified guides is undertaken before entering one. Rob Palmers Blue Hole Foundation on Grand Bahama will be able to advice on any aspects of blue-holes diving.
You will find the oldest family-owned dive resort in the Caribbean on Andros, at Small Hope Bay just north of Fresh Creek. Small Hope Bay Lodge and Dive Resort have been at the forefront of blue-holes exploration since 1960, and offer some of the most diverse diving available in the Bahamas. There is an emergency recompression chamber nearby at AUTEC (Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Centre), a NATON facility testing sound variations on ships and submarines. It is at their buoys in the middle of the Tongue of the Ocean that divers are able to interact with silky sharks.
