Diving in the Abacos: Part 1- Fowl Cay National Park

General Overview of Our Dives

While in the Abacos from late May through mid July of 2021, we dove 10 times on 5 different reef systems. Two were small reefs inside the Sea of Abaco, that’s between Great Abaco Island and the small barrier islands to its east. The other three reefs were on the Atlantic side of those barrier islands, but we always dove the leeward sides (facing the barrier islands) because the conditions on the Atlantic side were either too choppy, or there was no place for us to anchor Indigo Lady and it was too far to dingy.

I always enjoy being under the sea watching the fish school along the coral heads, but this series of dives seemed more desolate than our Florida Keys dives back in August of 2020. I went back through the videos from our Florida Keys dives and finally realized what had been missing in the Abacos- fish! Okay, we saw fish in the Abacos, as you’ll see in the video, but we saw far fewer fish, less variety, and rarely any large fish or sharks. I would say the coral was about in the same condition both in the Abacos and Florida Keys, though perhaps a little worse off in the Abacos. I suspect Hurricane Dorian (early September 2019) had something to do with that. Still, there were fish to see, and I do find it peaceful to watch them from inside the fish tank, so to speak.

Fowl Cay National Park

The video that follows is a compilation of five dives done in Fowl Cay National Park over three days in June (two in early June, one in late June). The picture at the top of this post shows the area we explored.

The park was established in 2009. It used to have around twenty dive moorings one could pick up (with a small boat, not Lady’s size), but Hurricane Dorian removed many of them. There were about 6-8 left, or reinstalled, on the Grouper Alley/Flywheel Bay side, labeled in purple on the picture above. We dingied to these from Indigo Lady, which was anchored on the inside of the north end of Fowl Cay. When we dove the Twin Reefs/Tombstone area, labeled in green, we anchored Indigo Lady in a tongue of sand near the anchor mark in the picture and launched hookah from her sugar scoops (the stern steps).

Now settle back and listen to me breathe through my regulator as you as you enjoy the giant fishbowl of Fowl Cay National Park.