Bimini

Bimini is two main islands and the channel between them, and the diving is shaped by which side of them you are on. North Bimini holds the operators and most of the rooms, clustered around Alice Town, while the airstrip is on South Bimini with a shuttle boat running across. Nothing is far. The sites sit close in, so days are built from short runs rather than long crossings, and a blown-out morning can often still turn into a workable afternoon without changing base.

The islands sit on the western rim of the Great Bahama Bank, which is why everything here has an edge to it. West of them the seabed drops away into the Straits of Florida and the Gulf Stream runs past, bringing blue water, movement and the odd pelagic. East of them are shallow banks, mangrove creeks and sand flats that barely register on a depth gauge. Reef dives sit on that western fringe and are mostly low, easy structure, while the sand sites used for sharks are open ground with nothing to hold on to.

Two encounters define the place, and neither is a normal dive. The winter great hammerhead sessions are long, shallow, largely stationary immersions on sand off South Bimini, with a crew managing bait and hours of waiting broken by an animal arriving at eye level. Atlantic spotted dolphins are the other, met on the banks on snorkel rather than scuba, since they come in to a drifting boat and will not wait around for a descent. Bimini also hosts a shark research station that has worked here since 1990, which is part of why these populations are so well documented.

Beyond the shark work, the rest of the site list is quick and light. The Sapona, a First World War era concrete-hulled ship driven aground by a hurricane in the 1920s, still breaks the surface, which makes it a snorkel stop, a night dive or a check-out site depending on the hour. The slabs of Bimini Road, which most geologists read as naturally fractured beachrock, make a brief, curiosity-driven dive best saved for a calm day. The mix suits divers who want big animals without a long journey and will hold still on sand in cool water, and fits poorly for anyone after coral scenery. The exposed western side stops working when a front comes through.