A Day for the Birds
Today, for the first time, we’re not alone. We are anchored in the lee of Cayo Serranilla, the largest of the few islets at Serranilla Bank. There’s a lighthouse on the island that doubles as an outpost for the Colombian …
Atlantic Ocean
The Sharks of Serranilla
“The area was swarming with large sharks—or ‘gobblers,’ as we called them…The gobblers were a constant problem. At times there were as many as twenty nearby. They were of all species and sizes.” That’s what underwater archaeologist and treasure hunter …
Wandering Bajo Nuevo’s corals
Our afternoon dive today was more surreal than most. We were on the far side of the lagoon here exploring Bajo Nuevo’s corals and instead of a large, defined reef mound, we were wandering through what looked like a field …
Rough Day at Bajo Nuevo
Suffice it to say there will be no more photos of a mirror-like sea surface anytime soon. This morning we fought high winds and 1.5-meter swells in the channel that runs between Bajo Nuevo’s two main reefs, but still managed …
Lagoon Life
One of the most exciting aspects of this expedition is that every morning we get in the water having no idea what we’re about to find. There’s always something interesting to see, but sometimes the reefs we find are a …
Healthy Corals at Alice Shoal
We made it to Bajo Nuevo this afternoon after a final productive day diving Alice Shoal corals. Though we didn’t find as much coral at Alice as we might have expected, there is positive news to report here, and chief …
Reef Mysteries
At first, Alice Shoal seems something of a mystery. Many of the problems slamming reefs around the world are minimal here. This area doesn’t seem to be generally overfished, for instance, and there are no communities nearby to flood the …
Alice’s Fishes
The reef at Alice Shoal was an impressive site today, as much for the human activity as the marine life. Rising up a few meters off the bottom I spotted divers working in pairs around me as far out as …
Another Mission Begins: San Andres Archipelago
Last night, when most of expedition team arrived, the crew had the Golden Shadow anchored just off Jamaica’s Port Royal, at the mouth of Kingston Harbor. In the 16th and 17th centuries that was a pirate hotspot, but an earthquake …