Elysian Holidays

I recently wrote about my latest trip to the Bahamas to swim with wild dolphins and this is the start of a series of accounts of other adventures that occurred during the trip. On waking early one morning after another glorious night sleeping under the stars on our catamaran, I dived into the sea for my first swim of the day. With snorkel and fins I set off and came upon an extraordinary collection of enormous boulders on the ocean floor. I knew there were claims that remains of the Lost City of Atlantis had been found in the region and that it was possible to see them. So here they were – a long line of smooth, grey, cylindrical boulders stretching along the sand looking for all the world like a road leading who knows where…..The size of these stones made it impossible to work out how they would have arrived there and even more fascinating was that they were of similar shapes and sizes. Apart from the amazing sight of these stones there were beautiful tropical fish everywhere, of all sizes, shapes and incredible colours and at one point I was joined by a turtle lazily flapping its way along the boulder road. I lingered there for ages, sharing this lovely place with the new inhabitants of The Lost City of Atlantis.

Deep in the mangroves not far off the island of Bimini there is the strangest place, known as The Healing Hole. One morning six of us set off in our tender across the bay to the mangroves and after nearly an hour and having almost decided that this place no longer existed, we spotted a gap in the dense jungle of mangroves.

Mooring the tender to a bush we set off swimming with snorkels and fins through a narrow channel, keeping our movements to a minimum to avoid stirring up the silt on the sea-bed. In single file we swam for some time through what became a tunnel of mangrove bushes all around and above us, deep into the heart of the mangroves. Suddenly we came to a clearing and found ourselves in a large deep pool open to the sky – the Healing Hole. Treading water we raised our heads out of the water to find a strong smell of sulphur and millions of mosquitoes ! We very quickly decided that whatever healing we had found would have to be enough and set off back to the open ocean and away from the mosquitoes. The mangroves are one of the most important elements of the marine eco-system and I was thrilled to have had the opportunity to experience swimming amongst them and to learn more about these amazing plants.