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Seamounts – Why Climb a Mountain If You Can Descend To Reach The Summit!
Divers who want the ultimate underwater experience often go to Cayos Cochinos. The seamounts of Cayos Cochinos are located about 30 km/19 miles off the Western point of Roatan.
“What are mountains underwater exactly?“, asks my Dutch friend Annet. “A seamount is an underwater peak that rises more than 1000 meters (3280 feet!) from the bottom of the ocean, without breaking the water’s surface. In other words, it is not an island…“
Seamounts are formed by submarine volcanoes! Although they can also be formed by colliding plates. They are generally extinct volcanoes that, when active, created piles of lava that sometimes break the ocean surface and come in a mixture of shapes and sizes which creates beautiful abundant reefs”. I explain.
Annet visits me every year and is an experienced diver. She loves Roatan, with its laid back atmosphere, beautiful lush beaches, and great diving. For her, I always want to organize some special different kind of dive, aside from the regular dives in my backyard.
For a day trip to Cayos Cochinos, the weather conditions have to be perfect- a flat sea to avoid a bumpy, unsafe and uncomfortable ride is a must. Which is not throughout the year. But we are lucky, around the end of March, when Annet is in town, we have the perfect weather so we decide to leave a bit after sunrise. It is a beautiful morning, sunny, breezy and it is a good feeling to leave Roatan behind for a moment.
After a 45 minutes boat ride, the two small main islands of Cayos Cochinos, Cayo Menor and Cayo Grande rise.
There is a series of underwater mountains between Roatan and Cayos Cochinos. Most are separate mountains, diveable ‘peaks’ of these mountains are between 80 ft and 60 ft in depth/deep.
One of the divers who joins us is Nicholas Bach ‘Nick’ of the Roatan Marine Park, who is in charge of the Marine Infrastructure. Nick marked six mounts on their Marine Park google map; RMP dive sites 2018 – https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1VAAlEKHNYaqEzG1-mQVxQSmVTYVjdyfA&hl=en&usp=sharing
“I think the main thing that has changed is the ease of access and that a lot more dive shops offer these trips. Ten years ago you felt like a pioneer if you took a dive group there. You could find a seamount by estimating the distance from Cayos and using a depth finder. Now there are almost ten moorings!”.
Well, we still feel like pioneers! This time we choose for diving the ‘kidney mountain’, the peak of this mountain is at 60 feet. When we are on top of the mountain we jump in the ocean and swim straight to the anchor line. It is pretty rough at the surface. In the meantime, I briefed Annet about the dive and tell her it’s important to hold tight on the anchor line before we go down. Annet is in front of me and we start our descent, but after 20 feet the current is stronger than I ever have experienced! While still holding the line, I looked down to find Annet, I couldn’t see her anymore because of the bad visibility. I keep my head cool, knowing that this strong current usually calms down after 30 feet. It takes a lot of strength to pull ourselves down. As long as we do not slip off the line we should be fine. At 40 feet I luckily see Annet right down below me and giving me the o.k. signal. The current slows down and the clarity starts to get much better. We enter into a different world of beautiful big schools of horse-eye jacks, a battery of barracudas, creole wrasses, and spadefish swimming passed us.
We go deeper to almost 100 feet, we swim around the seamount and have an exciting encounter with a nurse shark just hanging out off the reef as she feeds. In the background we see Nick catching some lionfish, which also attracts a lot of big curious groupers. Diving with Nitrox is the way to dive on a dive like this, it gives us some longer bottom time to enjoy the magnificent marine life. Annet spots a huge giant barrel sponge of at least 400 years old. With all the currents moving through this area, temperature fluctuation and the rich nourishing water that comes from the depths, make the coral on the seamounts very healthy and active.
At some point our tanks reach 1500 psi, to be on the safe side we will swim back to a shallower depth and in the direction of the mooring line. As soon as we reach the line we start pulling ourselves up slowly, we still have a stunning view around us. Ending with our safety stop and reaching the surface, we see everyone is safe and sound.
The Seamounts are more suitable for advanced divers in general, as the currents can be strong at times. Also, sudden squalls can occur, and cause difficulties to start a dive at the surface and makes it harder for a boat captain to find the divers back after a dive when they have surfaced.
Nick speaks out of his own experience, four years ago he ended up floating alone in the ocean for 11 hours, luckily the four of them got rescued just before sunset. Nowadays the seamounts are more accessible due to helpful navigation apps like e.g. Navionics.
Everybody can find a seamount but it needs a lot of experience to dive the mounts without getting in risk. Weather situations can be very unpredictable.
Another favorite seamount is located about 5 miles off the two main islands from Cayos Cochinos, and is small enough to be circumnavigated in one single dive compared to others might be miles around. This mountain is perfect for less experienced divers or to dive this mount as a second dive, because the top, which is more a ‘table mount’ is about 35 feet deep. Wave action can erode the summits to form a flat surface. These flat-topped Seamounts are called ‘guyots’.
Usually, nurse sharks are swimming around with their curious yet shy eyes. Even hammerheads might be spotted here. The chance to encounter pelagic fish is present. There might be some lionfish to hunt too. Nevertheless, you never know what you can expect.
A lot of dive shops offer this beautiful day trip with a two-tank dive. Between dives, you can explore the little rustic islands of Cayos Cochinos. Honduras has been ranked in the top 3 diving destinations in the Caribbean Sea for biodiversity and Cayos Cochinos is the leader in biodiversity in Honduras.
The two small main islands of Cayos Cochinos in the chain offer a variety of surrounding coral reef structures. The chain of 13 cays to the south are coral islands, with shallow coral reefs to the north and sloping walls to the south. These little pure, deserted cays are perfect to go for snorkeling too.
One of the two main islands is called Chachahuate island, this little village is a must to visit, after the dive, we meet the local Garifuna tribe. They welcome us and happily show us their island culture and let us taste their cuisine. A great way to end our day before we are heading back to Roatan.
In Roatan, Monique fell madly in love with the ocean… She has been ‘recreational’ diving since the 90’s, working as a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer since 2009 and as an underwater photographer since 2015.
She leads private dive expeditions and as a dive instructor she also teaches the basics of underwater photography. Helping students create thousands of beautiful images of the underwater world and showing them how to get better pictures with their own camera is her greatest passion.
Being underwater is a unique opportunity to see the nature as ‘art’.
- 10 Tips for Shooting Stunning Photos of Scuba Divers – October 20, 2019
- Seamounts – Why Climb a Mountain If You Can Descend To Reach The Summit! – August 20, 2019