Bahamas Aggressor II:: Undercurrent 01/2026

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Dear Fellow Diver,

My buddy and I swam over the patch reef on the edge of The Lost Blue Hole, a dramatic, nearly perfectly circular underwater sinkhole, with a 100-feet in diameter and located about 10 miles east of Nassau. While it plunged into dramatic gloom on the way to its 200-foot bottom, 100 feet was as deep as I went. The walls were steep and stark, and the atmosphere spooky enough for a thrilling frisson. Unlike the Belize Blue Hole, this was loaded with life. Crustaceans galore lurked in the wall crevices, and coral patches around its rim were flush with creatures. I watched a massive Methuselah-aged green turtle having its carapace groomed by tangs and parrotfish. A dozen robust blue parrotfish streamed by, looking as tough as a fish with a smiling beak can look. Stingrays cruised the sand looking for food, while a large nurse shark lolled under a coral head. And the exhaled bubble streams coming through small holes in the substrate at the hole's edge made me feel like I was in a glass of Champagne. This was easily the best dive site of my 10-day trip on the Bahamas Aggressor II. And we got to dive it three times, including a night dive!

When the BVI Aggressor relocated to the Bahamas last May, it upped the ante. The Bahamas Aggressor II, as it was renamed, is beamy and quite plush (which the much smaller Bahamas Aggressor I is not), and I was delighted to book a September trip. The diving is easy -- you simply hop off the transom and climb up its large ladders at the end of each dive.

My last Bahamas trip was the fall of 2017 (see my feature here https:// tinyurl.com/2aa548p4), and though I noted then some algal buildup on the reefs, they were mostly in decent to good shape. Sadly, that is no longer the case. It's not just the Bahamas that's affected, but all over the Caribbean that we see reefs suffering from algal buildup, SCTLD (stony coral tissue loss disease), and environmental stress. Is this the new normal? I think it is. The baseline has shifted from the lush reefs I remember from the 1980s and '90s. That said, I found a lot to like about diving from the Bahamas Aggressor II, and I will book the boat again when I get the chance....

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