Donde esta (where is) chiquita reef ?

Yesterday was my first dive with two frenchmen who have been exploring many of the caves, as well as a lot of the coastline of the Dominican Republic.

There is a place, however, that had still eluded them. A place called "Chiquita reef".

Chiquita reef, a mysterious location where no one has dived to in years. The exact location of that reef -- replete with exotic fish, sting rays, dangerous sharks, barracudas, sunken galleons and pirate ships -- was lost in time and only a few people still alive know of its existence, let alone its exact location . . .

Have I piqued your interest yet?

Well okay, I over romanticized the story a bit here but it sure felt like a mysterious and Indiana Jones esque epic adventure yesterday as the boat left Philippe, Thomas and me roughly 1 kilometer off the coast of Sosua.

We knew it would be a deep dive so, being the only one not having a twin, I was given a stage bottle.

We were given very vague
information on the possible
location of the reef

The top of Chiquita reef is presumably at 23 metres deep and goes down from there to a depth of about 40 metres. This particular fact was initially lost on me since I suffered from information overload because it was just a few hours before the dive that we were finally settled on which site we were gonna go to. The day before we were supposed to go to Rio San Juan, but on the morning of the dive, we learned that, because of mechanical failure on the boat, that dive would be scrapped. Then, we had a few options near Sosua and finally settled on Chiquita reef.

We were given very vague information on the possible location of the reef and because the boat was not equipped with a sonar, we could not know of the depth until we actually dove there.
With a sonar, we could have followed the pattern of the sea bed and determine the presence of a reef at 23 metres.

Anyways, we geared up, and jumped off the boat. The sea was rough so I dove a few metres underwater to finalize the tying up of my stage. Anticipating the possibilities of crevices and tunnels in the reef, I also brought along my Green force torch.

Thomas and I descended
to an, er...
undisclosed depth

When you consider that I have a 2 metre long hose for my main regulator, my octopus is tied around my neck, I have the cable for my green force going cross chest from right to left, down below I have my reel, my orange sausage, and on top of that, I have to tie in my stage without being all tied up, one understands the necessity of going underwater where I wasn't tossed around by the waves.

Once all geared up, we descended into the big blue. Thomas and I descended to an, er... undisclosed depth, and still saw nothing but the deep blue sea.

The big blue as I saw it ;-)

Within reach but out of reach.
That's how it felt to me as
I floated above this strange
looking landscape

Up above us, Philippe motioned to us to swim towards the coast. It is then that Thomas and I started to see the bottom. Still, the bottom was far below us, far . . . into trimix territory. Some call this depth "Deep air" which is a euphemism for "Suicidal air depth" :-)

I felt like the astronauts of Apollo 10 who flew within 16 kilometers above the surface in preparation for the historical landing of Apollo 11. Apparently, there was not enough fuel for them to land and take off from the moon so as to remove any tempation of landing.
Within reach but out of reach.
That's how it felt to me as I floated above this strange looking landscape, like hovering above the moon. Not so much because there were craters in the bottom of the sea but because of the rather strange looking pockmarked surface. Not sand but coral without all the variety, colors and fishes. In fact, we didn't see a single fish during the entire dive.

When it became clear that we would not find Chiquita reef, we started our slow ascent.

I recalled a similar
free floating deco stop in
Morocco a few years back

As we began ascending, I had 10 minutes of deco time, but by the time I reached deco stop depth, I had 12 minutes.

Doing a deco stop in the big blue is a special experience, there is nothing but the turquoise water to look at, and of course our dive buddies. In this case, no fish, no life form of any kind, just our computer, air gauge and our bubble going up to the surface. Philippe deployed a sausage and we waited, and waited, and waited.

I recalled a similar free floating deco stop in Morocco a few years back. I monitored my depth gauge and was able to maintain good buoyancy. This time, it was a little more difficult because of the surge on the surface. I kind of teetered within a meter most of the time. When you reference yourself on another teetering diver, it is hard to get a good fix.

Probably color blind for
not seeing the orange sausage
on a blue background in
broad sunny daylight

After 12 minutes, we surfaced and the boat was nowhere in sight, despite the fact that the sausage had been bopping up for the past 12 minutes. Again, I recalled my past experience in Morocco where the boat was always within a few meters when we'd surface. Now diving in Morocco is not for the faint hearted. We would sometimes go on a leaky wooden excuse for a fishing boat dating back to the Phoenicians and equipped with the original Ole Evinrude 1909 outboard engine. We figured that even if the boat would sink, that would give us a wreck to explore and we could always swim back to shore. But one thing I must commend the Moroccan fishermen for is that they do know how to follow bubbles. Even if they temporarily lose track of the bubbles, because they drift away while chit chatting, they somehow find those bubbles even in rough seas where the bubbles break out on the surface and are barely visible. They intuitively know how the boat drifted and the last direction the divers were going in order to relocate the bubbles -- never losing the divers.

Not having done a deep
dive in a while, I was glad
to see that, deep down,
I didn't feel any narcosis.

Now, back to our Dominican boat captain, 500 metres away . . . Probably color blind for not seeing the orange sausage on a blue background in broad sunny daylight, or maybe he thought he was sighting the very rare "Orange Dominican Dolphin" * bobbing its head up and down -- whatever . The only way we could get his attention is when Philippe used his direct system activated whistle. He said to me "Put your head in the water 'cause it blows loud".

Diver tip: If you ever are with a group of diver, lost, and one of them tells you to "dunk your head" because he's gonna blow his whistle, do as he says.

That thing blows loud, man! Loud enough to make a Manowar concert sound like chamber music.

Within seconds, we could see the boat rushing in our direction.

Not having done a deep dive in a while, I was glad to see that, deep below, I didn't feel any narcosis. I could perform the switch between my main reg and the stage's reg, monitor my depth on my two computers and air on my two gauges. In my case, swithching between bottles was recommended so as to prevent emptying one tank and then finding out that the stage has decided to have an impromptu mechanical malfunction.

Given our shorter than anticipated dive, I came out with half a tank on my main bottle and more than two thirds left on the stage, so I would have been okay on one tank alone.

Well, the search for the elusive Chiquita reef goes on . . .

Stay tuned . . .


* Orange Dominican Dolphins are often seen after gulping a bottle of dark Dominican Rum.


P.S. Although Chiquita reef is listed as part of the dive sites Northern coast diving goes to. It appears that they haven't gone there in quite some time because no one seems to know for sure where it is. With the recent hurricanes, the marker buoy disappeared and they need intrepid explorers like me and the frenchmen to relocate the spot and maybe, just maybe, mark the GPS coordinates and put it a new buoy. According to their website, stingrays are often found in Chiquita reef and the depth is only 30 meters, although this could be for not scaring the tourists ;-) For more on this neck of the world, check this site.