Caves
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| Entrance to Swallow's Cave |
Above the
water, the cave is probably about 40 feet high, 40 feet wide and goes back
about 100 feet from the entrance. Ray drove his dinghy in and tied up to a
rocky outcropping inside the cave. Ray told us the water was plenty deep
enough, so we put our snorkel gear on and jumped in, not knowing exactly what
to expect!
WOW!! The
water in the cave is crystal clear, the sunlight is streaming in from the cave
entrance and there are thousands of little fish swimming in tight “fish balls”
which move around throughout the cave. It is surreal. We spent quite a while
swimming in the cave, watching the fish balls moving all around us and
exploring the nooks and crannies.
A week later several of us went with David on his boat Anahata, to explore Mariner’s Cave and Swallow’s Cave. The first stop was Mariner’s Cave, which is hard to find because the entrance is about 6 feet under the water. On her second attempt Claudia, from La Belle Epoche, found the cave for us all.
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| Dina snorkeling above the fish balls |
A week later several of us went with David on his boat Anahata, to explore Mariner’s Cave and Swallow’s Cave. The first stop was Mariner’s Cave, which is hard to find because the entrance is about 6 feet under the water. On her second attempt Claudia, from La Belle Epoche, found the cave for us all.
Getting in
to Mariner’s Cave is scary the first time. It requires diving down 6 feet and
swimming into the pitch black entrance of the cave mouth for about 15 feet until
you can surface in the large air pocket inside the cave. David had been there
before so he went into the cave and came back several times to show us nervous
people that it was no big deal.
Malcolm’s
first attempt was aborted when his brain told him that swimming into a dark
underwater cave is SCARY! Malcolm and Chuck were ready to forget about this
stupid cave when Dina followed David in. Then Chuck said, “Great, now us guys
have to do it”. David came back out to lead Malcolm and Chuck in. Dina was left
inside laughing about how easy it had actually been.
There is
enough light coming in the cave mouth that we could see how easy the entrance
actually was. As we floated there the
surge came in from the ocean outside. Each surge compressed the air inside the
cave and created an instantaneous dense fog that quickly dissipated when the
surge ebbed. We felt the pressure change with each surge and had to clear our
ears as though we were diving. Exiting the cave was easy because we could see where
to go and were no longer afraid.
We left Mariner’s Cave and went over to Swallow’s Cave, in time for the late afternoon sun. Most of the people on David’s boat were going to scuba dive in the cave. When we got there, another boat was dropping off some divers. It might have been fun to dive to the bottom of the cave, but with so many divers at the bottom, the fish balls were all hanging out closer to the surface. Those of us snorkeling were completely surrounded by fish balls for another great experience.
We left Mariner’s Cave and went over to Swallow’s Cave, in time for the late afternoon sun. Most of the people on David’s boat were going to scuba dive in the cave. When we got there, another boat was dropping off some divers. It might have been fun to dive to the bottom of the cave, but with so many divers at the bottom, the fish balls were all hanging out closer to the surface. Those of us snorkeling were completely surrounded by fish balls for another great experience.
