By Harvey Hagman August 25, 1996 Publication: The Washington Times Page: E4
Word Count: 742
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As I looked down through my mask, thousands of air bubbles
ascended like liquid mercury through the dark blue water, rising
like a symphony of circular notes from an underworld orchestra.
Twenty feet down, the divers dumped their air and disappeared
into the Blue Hole.
Blue holes, circular sinkholes in the seabeds of shallow lagoons or lakes, contain deep
water that often leads to extensive cave systems. Their color is a deep blue, contrasting
with the light blue-green of surrounding waters.
The Caribbean has many, mainly in the Bahamas, but this is its finest. Perfectly round,
1,045 feet across and 412 feet deep, it was cut into the limestone about 15,000 years
ago. Enough sea water was frozen in glaciers during this time to lower the sea level 350
feet and expose the limestone of Lighthouse Reef.
Huge subterranean caverns formed when fresh water flowed through the limestone
deposits. Since then, the roof of the cavern has collapsed to form this sinkhole. Its
stalactites hang about 30 feet from 6-foot bases. Except for two narrow passages, the
hole is surrounded by living coral filled with sea life.
Underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau made a documentary focusing on the Blue Hole
in 1984; he concluded that a network of caves and crevices extends beneath the entire
reef.
The dive is deep (140 foot), short (10 minutes) and one-of-a-kind.
“It’s like free-falling at night,” says Craig Koch of Seattle. “I’ve never gone down so
fast. We faced the black wall; it was our only reference. Down, down, down. Dark, dark,
dark.”
“I felt like Alice falling down a rabbit hole,” says his wife, Ruby. I’m looking at my
depth gauge, equalizing the pressure in my ears, then I’m at 40 feet and I don’t know
how it happened. The pressure pulls your body down. It gets colder and colder, and then
you see the stalactites.”
“They are the biggest udders I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mr. Koch says, laughing.
“They look like shark’s teeth,” says Jude Reider, a flight attendant from Seattle. “It looks
like a cave, but it’s an overhang.”
The overhang forms a cavern ceiling from which hang stalactites and dripstone pillows.
More than 50 feet below the ceiling lies the cave floor, which opens into a cave system.
Cathyann Jones of Tigard, Ore., recalls falling through blackness “to this silent,
wondrous place filled with stalactites. I thought, this is the eighth wonder of the world;
it moved my soul. I looked at Charlie, and his eyes were shining. I thought, he got it,
too. Wow!”
“It was like sky diving,” her husband, Charlie, says. “Then we stopped our descent and
traveled inside the overhang where the stalactites were. We swam in and out. I thought,
this must be what it feels like to be a bat in a magnificent cathedral.
“Later, I looked down and saw this 4-foot-long barracuda. It was amazing to see a large
fish hanging out down there.”
Miss Reider, a Blue Hole veteran, says: “On a bright day you can see the stalactites at 90
feet, so you can see where you’re going. You can swim in and out through them like
you’re swimming in a vast forest. You look up and you can see the curvature of the hole.
“The bottom time is only two minutes, then the dive master leads us to a sandy area at
about 17 feet, where we dump our air and lay back on the sand to decompress for five or
six minutes.”
“That time to yourself is wonderful,” Mrs. Koch says. “You are unmuddied by others’
excitement. You can travel through it again in your mind.”
Dive master Andy Stockbridge, who has led the dive many times, says: “It’s a dark,
deep, exciting dive. There is no colorful coral. You feel a bit of nitrogen narcosis
[rapture of the deep]. I get a real adrenalin rush.”
A lush, varied collection of marine life fills the coral reefs that surround the Blue Hole.
They rise within a few feet of the surface, making them perfect for snorkeling. Stands of
elkhorn, club finger and shallow-water corals abound. Giant green anemones, yellowtail
snapper, ocean triggerfish, rainbow-colored parrotfish and countless brilliantly colored
fish amaze the snorkeler – and there are no other dive boats in sight.
Maybe next time I’ll try the Blue Hole.
The Washington Times
Date: August 25, 1996
Page: E4
Copyright 1996 News World Communications# Inc.