Desecheo dive

 

I have been jonesing for a Desecheo dive. I finally got a fix on Sunday.

Desecheo is a small, uninhabited island about 14 miles off the west coast of Puerto Rico. There are several things that make diving Desecheo different from our usual dives.

First, obviously, it is a boat dive - you need a boat to get there. All of our local dives are shore dives where we just drive to a site and walk in right from the shore.

Then there is the water itself. On the boat ride out you can tell when you cross from the Atlantic into the Caribbean. It is almost as if someone drew a line in the ocean. The water turns from green to blue, a deep deep sapphire blue.

And the visibility: 

On an okay day at Desecheo the visibility is 70 or 80 feet. On a good day it's over a hundred feet.It was okay on Sunday.

Finally, there is the sea life. Because the entire island and the surrounding waters are a protected wildlife area, the reef and the fish are healthy. There are more fish and especially bigger fish. Since they can't be caught or speared, they live to grow to their full size. Since people can't just drive to the island, the reefs don't get trampled on. 

As boat dives go, Desecheo is a good one for me. Mostly of the anchorages are on the lee (protected) side of the island. I get seasick and sitting around on a corkscrewing boat getting ready for the first dive or between dives in just miserable for me. I love having the boat anchored in lee of the island.

There are a number of different dive sites around the island and Sunday we got to dive a couple of sites I've not been to before. The last area, close to the island, was through channels and canyons in the coral reef. At one point, swimming into one of the canyons, we swam over the wreckage of a Navy PT boat. I didn't even know there was a wreck out there!

Every so often I just have to do a Desecheo dive. I hope the next one will be sooner rather than later.

The rest of the photos are up on our Flickr page if you'd like to have a look.