It has been some time since I last wrote about diving. Anguilla has some really good dive sites and since I qualified as a PADI Open Water Diver at the ripe old age of 43, I have been busily enjoying the different experiences these sites offer, whilst building my experience and taking other diving courses. It really has been such fun!

Spotted Trunkfish

If I had to state which my favourite dive site is, and I confess that there are more sites than I have had time to visit, I would have to say that I love diving off Anguillita. This is a dive site that consists of a series of shelves each about fifteen feet deeper than the last, leading to a sandy bottom which is about 60 feet deep. There are overhangs of coral offering perfect places for fish to hide or to shoal. You never know what you are going to find and I have been circled by an inquisitive shark, seen great balls of shoaling Tarpon, each massive fish mindlessly following the next in their docile, circular swimming, rays resting in the sand hoping we divers would not notice them, lobsters popping out of their lair to see us going by and a host of other equally exciting marine dwellers. With the sun filtering through the shallow water lighting up the plant life and picking out the colours of the fish, this is a great place to practice the underwater photography I have been experimenting with sporadically since last November, when I took the PADI Underwater Photography course.

Of course, I do not always take my camera and I always regret the decision the moment I get down in the depths. I was diving on the wreck of the Ida Maria a couple of weeks ago and it was just lovely to see a 300 pound Goliath Grouper resting in the shade of one of the holds. The only other time I had seen anything like it was when I was in Key Largo last year and met Cooper, the Grouper, the 500 pound star attraction of one of the dive sites there. I had heard that these large fish sometimes could be found in Anguillian waters, but this was the first time I had seen one here and I had no camera to record the sighting. Typical!

Ray at Anguillita

I was taking my practical examinations, or ‘scenarios’ as they are called, for my Rescue Diver course a couple of weeks ago over at Sandy Island. This has a lovely reef system running around two thirds of it and varies in depth from about fifteen to seventy feet. Special D Divers and I were in the shallows at about 20 feet and my buddy, Dougy, and I were examining a cute juvenile trunk fish. These are triangular in shape and they always surprise me how their tiny pectoral fins keep them right side up in the water! Of course, I could not take a camera with me on that occasion as I was under training and, frankly, it would have been in the way. I was expecting Dougy to have some kind of major calamity underwater at any moment to test me, so was dividing my attention between the trunk fish and him. He was kind enough to let me look at the little fellow for a minute or two, he knows my fascination and this one was only about two inches long, before giving an Oscar winning performance as a diver who first is attacked by a lobster, gets anxious and runs out of air, has to be rescued from beneath the sea, towed back to the boat and have emergency first aid administered. Phew! This was only one of the scenarios and the easiest to deal with. I ended that day absolutely exhausted, having passed the most physically challenging course I have ever studied in my life.

Diving off Dog Island is fun. The current is strong so it is not really for a novice diver, but a group of us went over there a few weeks ago and descended through the immense holes in the ledges of coral to a sandy bottom about 80 feet deep. Here you are likely to see all kinds of fish and we did! Small Grouper, lobster hiding in their cubbyholes, elegant Parrotfish, beautiful Queen Triggerfish with their eyes carefully made up with underwater mascara. It is colourful and alive and makes for a dive that is more challenging and with lots to see.

Diving at night is some people’s cup of tea. I confess that, although I am a tea drinker, I am less enamoured of drinking it at night in the pitch black. I have dived on the wreck of the cargo ship, Cathley H twice at night. The first time I was truly terrified I was going to land on one of the many rays which settle there in the dark and I was not happy peering by torch light through the gloom. I have plucked up courage once more since then and could more truly appreciate the beauty of feeding coral, bright yellow in the torch light, and the tiny plankton floating in the water reflecting the light, like sparklers at a firework display.

Anguilla has a lot to offer divers and is still unspoilt. The huge cattle boats of the Florida Keys have not reached Anguilla and I hope they do not. Anguilla’s dive sites still offer lots to see and long may they stay that way.

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