The word 'Bahamas' is a derivative of the spanish "Baja Mar" meaning "shallow sea".
The Bahamas is a 100,000sq mile archipelago that extends over 500 miles of the most idyllic blue crystal clear water in the world.....
700 islands, including uninhabited cays and large rocks have a total population of 300,000 people. The Bahamas has the world's third longest Barrier Reef and 5% of the world's coral can be found in its waters. Visibility is over 200ft in places, which gives it the clearest water in the world. It is said that a certain alga which requires light to live, is found deeper in the Bahamas than anywhere else on earth.
Some interesting facts:
-Mount Alvernia on Cat Island at 206ft (63 m) is the highest point in the Bahamas
-Inagua has the world's largest breeding colony of West Indian flamingos at over 60,000. The ratio of Flamingos to people in Inagua is 61:1!
-There are 120 species of plants found exclusively in the Bahamas.
-And then there are the sharks.......sharks, sharks and more sharks..... Reef sharks, Nurse sharks, Tiger sharks, Bull sharks, Lemon Sharks, Hammerhead sharks....
At Stuart Cove's we dived with Caribbean reef sharks on a daily basis. We worked in the center of 30-40 swirling reef sharks during our afternoon Extreme Shark Adventure. All the shark images below were taken by Leon and Claudia during their 7 years working in the waters off the south eastern tip of New Providence Island. Crystal clear waters, amazing sharks.......
