Near Alders Cay, in the Berry Islands area of the Bahamas, there is an extensive estuary called Shark Creek. The information we have says it is a major birthing and growing-up area for many water creatures including Sharks, Rays, and Sea Turtles. I have to confess that when MB read this to me from one of our guidebooks, it took me back to middle school athletics. Didn’t every middle school have sports teams with names like these?
We decided this place was not to be missed, so picking a particularly windy day for our dinghy trip (that’s a bad thing in our dinghy), we headed out across a broad and shallow area to the entrance of the creek. Some places were too shallow and we got stuck so MB had to drag the dinghy into deeper water!
It turns out that its name should probably be Turtle Creek since we saw many turtles and nary a shark or ray anywhere. Perhaps at a young age the turtles develop their predatory skills earlier than sharks and rays leaving many turtles to grow and not some many sharks and rays.
The estuary is very, very pretty. Lined with mangroves on both sides, with an undulating shallow bottom ranging from white sand to dense grass in many combinations. It does seem the perfect nursery for marine life. The mangroves on the edges with their tangled roots provide safety for creatures large and small. There is something a bit spooky about letting the dinghy drift into the edge of these tangled areas. While not tall plants, they do create a shadowy world with dark pockets, arms sticking out and slimy growth which is not appealing to humans. Small swimmy things, however, seem to like it just fine.
The “adolescent” turtles preferred the middle of the channel where the water was clear and the sun bright upon the bottom sand and grasses. These turtles ranged from about 1 foot long to about 2½ feet long. Mary Beth leaned over the front of the dinghy, holding her GoPro in the water as the turtles fled from what they seemed to think was a really hungry dinghy. We soon learned to spot the turtles as they lay quietly on the bottom in the shallow water. They looked like dark areas, or shadows, on the sandy bottom. The clear water was only 3 to 5 feet deep, so they were pretty easy to spot. They would hold still on the bottom until the dinghy was almost over them, then they would sprint at a blistering pace to outrun it, finally diving to one side or the other just before we over took them. It is really surprising how fast and graceful they are underwater. We tried not to harass them, but it took some restraint.
These estuaries would be easy to get lost in. There are many branches in these meandering waterways, and none of them go in straight lines. As we went deeper into the estuary, it became harder and harder to discern the main channel or even whether or not we had been in a particular channel before. We tried to minimize our turns but we worried once or twice on our way back out that we were not in the right place. We soon saw the entrance to the estuary and found our way back to Regina Maris.
See the video that Mary Beth took of the turtles fleeing from us ravenous predatory boaters on MB's FB (we haven't figured out how to post videos here yet).
Thanks for reading!
David and Mary Beth