Diving at South Eleuthera, The Bahamas
Ocean Fox Cotton Bay provides professional scuba diving and snorkeling from our base of operation at Davis Harbour Marina at the South end of Eleuthera. We strive to provide our clients with a highly personalized level of service and adapt to our clients needs as best we can. Generally we suggest four (4) to six (6) divers with an absolute maximum of eight (8), all accompanied in water by our Dive Master Daryl Miller on either Topdog or Underdog.
We offer a variety of dives; wall dives are a favorite of most of our clients, we can tailor the depth to your desires and skill set. Most of the wall dives start at around 50-60 feet of water and it's just ocean blue below once you reach the wall. On the way up from a wall dive it's what we call "rock wall climbing Bahamas style", a very unique experience. We have a couple of pinnacle reefs, commencing in 12-15 feet of water with a bottom at 55-60 feet. Shark dive, the site is called the Christmas Tree and is known for the opportunity to see reef, bull and black tip sharks along with large grouper, jacks, lobster and spider crabs; oh yea, throw in a spotted moray eel now and again, [Note: if you are nervous about sharks, please let us know and we will not take you to this site]. You can dive the wall near the Christmas Tree, then dive the Christmas Tree on the second dive and finish the second dive with your three (3) minute safety stop on top of the reef observing the coral and fish rather than hanging on to the mooring line. Boiling holes are an underwater connection to the Atlantic Ocean through the cavernous limestone which allows deep ocean water to boil through on an incoming Atlantic tide. These are small blue holes, but offer enhanced marine life around them due to the colder Atlantic nutrient rich water. Depths range from 30-45' around the boiling holes with lots of topography and an abundance of beautiful tropical reef fish wanting to be photographed. We have several great Shallow reefs starting at 3-4' below the surface and going to 20-40 feet deep. These sites provide our clients with the opportunity to take the family and/or friends out even though not everyone is a certified diver. The other family members or friends can enjoy the marine life snorkeling while the balance of family or friends get the opportunity to burn some air. Night dives, we offer night dives on the boiling holes or pinnacle reefs.
We have three (3) new dive opportunities for more experienced divers; Bridge Drift Dives, diving the bridge between Southeast Eleuthera and Little San Salvador where the water on either side of the "bridge" connecting these two islands is several thousand feet deep but rises to 30-60 feet on the crest of the bridge with the distance between the islands being some twelve (12) miles. Currents typically are in the 1-3 knot range, but at times can be 4-5 knots; visibility is never less than 100+ feet and is even clearer most of the time. Depending on the current, dives typically cover 0.4-0.8 miles. Little San Salvador trip, this is a 3 tank dive day, with lunch on the boat and consists of two (2) wall dives, one of which includes a pinnacle reef with swim through and the third dive on the way back to the marina at a boiling hole or it may be a bridge drift dive. Little San Salvador is rarely visited by divers, thus the marine life is abundant and the visibility outstanding.
We offer Exploration Wall Dives, for those experienced divers who want the ultimate diving experience. There are literally miles of walls, which have not been explored, which we from time to time will dive in search of new dive sites. You will do a free descent from an unanchored boat in 50-75' of water and swim along the wall in search of potential new dive sites. We deploy a reel with a surface buoy for the dive boat to follow and use that to signal the dive boat we are ascending. We do the three minute safety stop without a line or mooring, so buoyancy control is paramount. In early April 2012 we added two new dives—"The Canyon of Anchors" and "Rich's Canyon", both of which we discovered on an exploration dive day. We then returned the following day to map out the sites.
The Bridge Drift Dives, the Little San Salvador Dives and the Exploration Wall Dives are subject to weather conditions and require documentation of experience in potentially difficult open water conditions and experience with current drift dives.
We typically do two tank dives for a trip, but we can do three tank dives along with lunch and perhaps throw in a beach visit as well. Just tell us what your group would like to do and we will do our best to customize the trip to satisfy you and your group, family or friends.
"Ocean Fox Cotton Bay diving…………anything else is just a surface interval"