Riddles of the Dark Depths: Dean's Blue Hole. A blue hole in the Bahamas is likely to be inhabited by a huge aggressive octopus
February 11, 2014
Bahamas..For many people, the associations that arise at the mention of this paradise are quite the same: the ocean, the beach with the purest sand, corals, bright sun all year round, the rustle of palm trees.
But there is something else in these heavenly places that calls and attracts lovers of extreme diving, explorers of the depths, connoisseurs of sharpness, risk and novelty.
Andros Island, at first glance, is no different from the landmasses that make up the Bahamas archipelago. But the mysterious whirlpools that arise in the warm Caribbean Sea attract increased attention to Andros.
Secrets of the Bahamas
Andros - which includes small islands and coral shoals. Between them are deep straits. The size of the island: 160X 65 km.
Andros is surrounded on three sides warm seas, but East End it contains an amazing, very long and deep depression. The language of the ocean is the name of this deepening.
When viewed from above, strange spots of dark blue become noticeable. These are the entrances to the flooded ones, which are connected with the help of intricate passages and galleries. A winding labyrinth of huge underwater halls and small secluded places, on the walls and vaults of which stalactites and stalagmites of the most bizarre forms are visible.
Mysteries of the Blue Holes of Andros
Deep wells with inky blue water have not been fully explored. But everything unknown is frightening and inspires fear. There is a legend about a mysterious formidable monster, whose name is Luska. The whirlpools of Andros Island are closely associated with the name of this creature. Either a giant octopus, or a bloodthirsty shark - this is how the inhabitants of the Bahamas imagine Luska.
The formation of whirlpools is associated with tides. , which an unknown artist draws on the surface of the ocean, appears along with an increase in the water level. The ocean rises higher and higher barrier reef located around the island. The movement of powerful streams in a circle begins.
The funnels formed by the currents are very dangerous, they can even swallow the small boats of those who had the imprudence to fish here at the wrong time.
The tide comes in - and the process is repeated in reverse order. From bottomless wells whole fountains burst out with noise. So with water, the gluttonous Luska gets rid of the remnants of the meal.
Divers, divers cautiously move through the huge flooded halls, so as not to raise bottom silt. Everyone understands that Luska is nothing more than ancient legend, but deep winding passages still pose a danger to depth explorers.
Stages of the formation of flooded lakes in the Bahamas
130 million years ago, at the junction of periods, there was a change in sea level. Some caves have gone under water. Later they collapsed. And other caves rose up due to deposits. After a while they filled up with water. This is how the mysterious Blue Holes appeared.
Blue Holes is home to amazing sea creatures. Atlantic Ocean in the Bahamas has a rich undersea world. There are sharks, bottom crayfish slowly move at the bottom, sponges of pale lilac and light blue colors soar in the water column. Caves at the bottom of the ocean sheltered colorless fish, which, moreover, are also blind.
Historical finds off the Bahamas
The Sacred Blue Hole is the name of a huge flooded well, deep underground, in which human remains were found. Research scientists have shed light on the sensational discovery. Skulls and bones turned out to belong to the conquerors of the ocean - the contemporaries of the great Columbus. The discovery only increased interest in the island of Andros. Mysterious Island, which constantly throws up new riddles to people, is waiting for daredevils who dream of swimming through underground corridors and enjoying the unique views of the caves and halls of the Blue Holes.
- a mix of romance unrevealed secrets and amazing adventures that await everyone who visits one of the most interesting places Earth.
Bahamas - Andros photo
Nature is the best artist and creator in the world! And today we will talk about one of the most amazing phenomena in the world - about blue holes.
What is a blue hole
It turns out that there are a lot of "blue holes" on earth. This is the name of wells formed in the ocean or in the sea. They are characterized by great depth and the presence of underwater caves (which are usually interconnected). This is very interesting phenomenon, a blue hole, for example, has made the Bahamas so popular with divers around the world.
Why "blue"?
This name came by analogy with the "black" space holes. Black holes are scattered throughout outer space, and blue holes are scattered across the world's oceans. In addition, they are blue in the photo.
Where can they be found?
Blue holes can be found:
- in the Bahamas;
- in Egypt;
- in Malta;
- on the Bahamas;
- in Belize, etc.
The term is often used to refer to underwater wells that are filled with water. The entrance to them is located below the surface of the water. Blue holes are the result of karst processes. Under the action of streams of rainwater, cracks were washed out in the limestone rock. And during the Ice Age, the sea level rose, and the cracks were submerged in water.
Let's see what a blue hole is, in the photo!
A series of photos will help you better imagine what a blue hole is! Watch and wonder...
Great Blue Hole, Belize
Blue Hole Bahama
Bahamian blue hole Dina in the Bahamas is one of the deepest sinkholes underwater world. We will separate it!
Just think - its depth reaches 663 meters!
This place is considered ideal for free diving.
The blue hole has a round base with a diameter of 25-35 meters.
After descending 20 meters, you find yourself in a cave with a diameter of about 100 meters and a depth of 133 meters.
Its length is as much as 700 meters.
The cave has 2 entrances. One of them is located between the stones right in the jungle at a distance of 425 meters from the main one. It is called "lonely barracuda".
The beauty you see is simply breathtaking!
Here are a couple more photos!
And other blue holes in the ocean
Blue hole in Gozo
Messages about sea monsters can be found almost anywhere the globe, including stories about huge sea serpents. But very interesting posts come from the spa paradise on Bahamas in the Caribbean. Something huge and ferocious lives in the local waters.
Dean's Blue Hole(not to be confused with the Great Blue Hole) - the deepest currently known blue hole on the planet (the term blue hole is common name for sinkholes filled with water and located below sea level).
Dean's Hole is located in a bay west of the town of Clarence Town (Bahamas) on Long Island. Its depth is 202 m. Dean's Hole is a very popular place for tourists to swim and dive divers, although the latter is considered a very dangerous activity.
At depth, divers can face treacherous currents, disorientation, narrow passages, and mysterious monster, nicknamed "The Beast of the Blue Hole" ( blue hole Beast).
locals have long told stories of a monster called Luska(Lusca). Luska is described as having many sharp teeth and long, powerful octopus-like tentacles. The dimensions of Luska are huge and reach up to 60 meters.
She is said to be able to change color like an octopus and looks like a squid-eel-dragon hybrid. In general, Luska's descriptions may vary, but a couple of details will remain unchanged there - tentacles, as well as voracity and aggressiveness.
Locals say that Luska lives in several local blue holes, including Dean's Blue Hole, and goes hunting at night and can even climb out of the water and attack people in the city. During the day, she sleeps in underwater caves.
Fishermen tell stories that they saw something pull boats with people under the water next to the blue holes. The deaths of many divers who died during a dive or even went missing underwater are often hung on Luska. And several times, the bodies of divers were allegedly found with traces of suction cups on the body, as if from the tentacles of a huge octopus.
While this may sound like just spooky tales for the entertainment of tourists, there are some cases that make sure that not everything here is made up by fishermen. In 2005, one of the divers said that while diving into a blue hole, he was attacked by a huge octopus, whose length was at least 15 meters. The diver managed to escape, but the mollusk wrapped its tentacles around his camera and dragged him into his cave.
Another diver claimed to have seen a nurse shark being grabbed in the water by a tentacle "width of a telegraph pole" and dragged into an underwater cave.
There is also the story of a fishing boat crew who saw something very strong trying to tug on the buoys and drag them under the water. One of the buoys was attached directly to the boat and something grabbed it and dragged it along with the boat for some time.
Sonar on this boat at the same time showed some large "pyramidal" object under water, and after that the buoys and traps attached to them were raised crumpled and twisted, as if they had been in a huge meat grinder.
TV show "Destination Truth", which tells about different anomalous phenomena, filmed a story about this creature and during the filming, their sonar showed the presence of a large animal under water, crawling along the cave wall.
Another popular TV show, "River Monsters", also did a story about Lusk in these areas, and although host Jeremy Wade caught nothing out of the ordinary, he suggested that the monster could very well be a very large octopus.
"The giant octopus may well catch and even eat a person. My research on these creatures has shown that this is an amazing and agile predator, and with its behavior this is possible," says Jeremy Wade.
Could Luska be an as yet undiscovered species of a very large octopus? Quite possibly. In 2011, a strange carcass washed up on the shores of the Bahamas, which seemed to have only a head and a mouth. If we accept that these were the remains of an octopus without tentacles, then in general it would have been at least 6-9 meters in diameter.
The largest known species of octopus is the giant octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini). Large individuals up to 150 cm in size and weigh about 30 kg. Specimens up to 50 kg in weight and up to 3 m long have been registered. There are also unconfirmed reports of sightings of these octopuses 4.3 meters long.
Maybe some of them reach especially large sizes? The problem is that giant octopuses live in pacific ocean, and not near the Bahamas (Atlantic Ocean). However, it shows that huge octopuses may well be a reality and not a myth.
The recent discovery of huge holes in the Earth's surface in Siberia has puzzled scientists, perked up conspiracy theorists, and led the public to wonder if the ground is really that reliable. It turns out that the surface of the Earth is literally riddled with many holes, and some of them look like gates to a completely different world. In hiring a review of the 10 most mysterious "earth holes".
1. Siberian holes
Recently, three strange holes in the ground were found in Siberia. At the bottom of the first, whose diameter is 50-100 meters, there is a lake. The second hole, a few kilometers from the first, is about 15 meters in diameter. The third hole that the reindeer herders accidentally found is an almost perfect cone-shaped hole about 4 meters wide and 60-100 meters deep. Judging by the ring of debris and dirt around each hole, they were created by some forces that came from inside the Earth and burst out. Naturally, many theories have appeared - from crazy rockets and gas developments to underground destruction caused by the melting of permafrost. The second discovered hole is called the "End of the World", as local residents in early September 2013 observed either an explosion on the surface, or something falling from the sky.
2. Kola superdeep well
Naturally, not all holes in the earth's crust formed for natural or mysterious reasons. From 1970 to 1994, Russian geologists dug the largest hole on Earth - the Kola super-deep well, the depth of which reached 12 kilometers. While drilling, scientists have found many amazing things, in particular - the remains of life that existed on the surface two billion years ago.
At a staggering depth of 6,700 meters, biologists have discovered tiny planktonic fossils. The study of the rocks turned out to be more difficult than expected. Due to the fact that great depth ultra-high pressure and high temperature, rock samples that were brought to the surface were deformed. By the time the well reached a depth of 10,000 meters, the temperature had risen to 180 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately, the excavations were stopped when it simply became impossible to fight the heat.
3. German deep drilling program and the heartbeat of the Earth
In 1994, drilling was stopped at a German ultra-deep well, which was originally conceived as one of the most ambitious geophysical projects. The aim of the project was to enable scientists to study things like the effect of pressure on different rock layers, the presence of anomalies in the earth's crust, the structure of the crust, and how heat is conducted through it.
A $350 million project in Windischenbach, Germany left a 9,100-meter-deep hole in the ground that reached 265 degrees Celsius at the bottom. In addition to various scientific experiments, the Dutch artist Lotte Geeven wanted to know how the Earth sounds. She lowered a geophone into the hole to record ultrasonic waves that the human ear cannot perceive. As a result, she got a frightening recording, similar to the sound of a thunderstorm in the distance and a heartbeat.
4. Dead Sea sinkholes
It is not known exactly how many sinkholes formed around Dead Sea, but it is believed that at least 2500 since 1970, and since 2000 - 1000. Like the holes appearing in Siberia, these sinkholes are signs of a change environment. The Dead Sea is fed by the Jordan River, and every year less and less water enters it. Now this sea is 3 times smaller than in the 1960s, and such a draining of a large reservoir leads to the emergence of sinkholes.
5 Dean's Blue Hole
The deepest blue hole (as holes located under water are usually called) is Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas. Considering that the depth of Dinah reaches a stunning 202 meters (more than twice as much as most other blue holes), this place has become a favorite among professional deep-sea divers. In 2010, in this blue hole, William Trubridge set the record for diving to 101 meters without external oxygen or other equipment. A Brooklyn diver died trying to break the record in 2013 after being submerged for more than three and a half minutes, resurfacing and immediately losing consciousness. Locals tend to stay away from Dean's Blue Hole. According to legend, this hole was dug by the devil, and he is still there.
6Randomly Appearing Mount Baldy Holes
In 2013, a six-year-old boy wandered through sand dunes on Mount Baldy national park Indiana Dunes. Suddenly, a funnel formed under him, swallowing the boy. It was possible to get it only after 3 hours from under a three-meter layer of sand. Since then, other funnels have started to appear randomly. Scientists cannot explain this phenomenon, since none of the conditions necessary for the formation of such craters are present on Mount Baldi, and nothing was revealed when using georadar. A year after the first funnel, they began to appear so often that the park was forced to close.
7. Failure of the Devil
Devil's Pit is a huge underground chamber in Edwards, Texas. The 15m wide opening leads to a 106m deep cave that is home to one of the largest known colonies of Mexican free-tailed bats. More than three million bats fly out of the cave every night. The history of the funnel is shrouded in mystery. Arrowheads and darts were found in it, dating back to 4000-2500 BC.
The Sawmill Sink is another blue hole in the Bahamas that is far more important to scientists than it is to divers. The blue hole was the place archaeological sites, which changed the opinion of scientists about the landscape of 1000 years ago. The funnel is unique in that it was once dry, but gradually the water level rose and hid the bones. Fossilized remains of a giant tortoise, a crocodile, birds, seeds, flowers and even the remains of plants have been found at Sawmill, still green in color.
The Andros Black Hole, located on South Andros Island in the Bahamas, is very different from other blue holes in the area. The funnel has a dark purple color due to the fact that at a depth of 18 meters in the water there is a layer of bacteria that lives between highly oxygenated surface waters and practically anoxic deep waters. Below the curd-like layer of microorganisms is a layer clean water and another purple layer, comparable in consistency to jelly.
10. Son Doong Cave
Son Doong Cave was first discovered in 2009, after one of the holes leading from the cave to the surface was discovered by a local farmer. cave system was so carefully hidden in the jungle that it was found quite by accident. Shondong, which was announced largest cave in the world, formed between 5 and 2 million years ago, it was carved out of limestone by an underground river. In some places, the erosion came so close to the surface that the roof of the cave collapsed in places, forming several through holes. Enough penetrated through these holes sunlight so that a real jungle begins to grow in the cave. In addition to the underground flora, in the cave you can find 60-meter walls of calcite, underground river, a waterfall, as well as 80-meter stalagmites and stalactites.
Dean's Blue Hole, located near Clarence Town on Long Island, Bahamas, is the deepest known "blue hole" - a definition given by any deep, a water-filled, vertical cavern or crater whose entrance is below the surface of the water.While the maximum depth of most blue holes and craters is in the order of 110 meters, Dean's Blue Hole is over 200 meters deep, making it quite unique. Dean's Blue Hole appears to be approximately round, with a diameter varying from 25 to 35 meters, after descending 20 meters, the hole expands significantly, forming a cavern with a diameter of 100 meters.
Blue holes are so called because of the impressive contrast between dark blue, deep waters their depths and the light blue color of the shallow water around them. The intense blue color is created by the high transparency of the water and the bright white carbonate of the sand. Blue light is the most stable part of the spectrum. Other parts of the spectrum - red, yellow and green are absorbed during their passage through the water column, blue light manages to reach white sand and return on reflection.
Blue holes have formed over the past ice ages when sea levels were as much as 100-120 meters lower than they are today. These holes were formed by deep groundwater, which gradually dissolved the limestone until the vaults from these voids collapsed. Later, the sea level rose and filled the holes with water. 
Dean's blue hole is popular place for diving and snorkeling. During the 2012 World Freediving Championships in the Bahamas, New Zealander William Trubridge set a world record when he dived 121 meters into Dean's Blue Hole without air. 
