The Eyes of Andros

The Bahamas are best known for white sand beaches and shallow turquoise seas, but what many people don’t know is that there is a hidden underworld beneath these picturesque islands. The largest island in the Bahama chain, Andros, is home to over two hundred “blue holes”.

Blue holes can occur in the sea or on land, and form when the tops of caves collapse inward to produce a sheer-sided sinkhole full of water. On Andros, these blue holes are all connected by a series of tunnels and caverns that stretch for miles, linking the interior of the island with the open sea far beyond. Most of these caves have never been mapped, but estimates put many of them up to a thousand feet deep.

Called “the eyes of Andros”, these caves appear to be murky portals, evoking curiosity and fear as to what may lie beneath the black surface. It is little wonder that the legends surrounding these blue holes are just as dark as their waters.

There are a number of reported deaths in the blue holes that involve swimmers being dragged under by unseen creatures, never to resurface, and the bodies never recovered. Some claim this is the work of the Lusca, an animal that is half-shark, half-octopus, who pulls its prey down into the dark heart of the island to devour them.

Not only are they the potential home of terrifying monsters, they pose a very real threat to swimmers and divers as well. While oceanic blue holes are often full of life, those found in the interior of Andros are toxic. With limited tidal influence, and no currents to mix the water, the caves are highly stratified. The first few feet of the water column is stagnant freshwater, hiding denser saltwater below. This saltwater is devoid of oxygen, and is instead full of another, very dangerous, gas; hydrogen sulfide.

With no oxygen and a plethora of toxic gas, one would assume these blue holes can harbor no life. But the opposite is true. The deep caverns are inhabited by prehistoric extremophile bacteria, and the diversity is staggering. A sample of five blue holes across the island revealed that they contained no shared species; that is, every hole represents its own isolated world, and the bacteria that thrive in each are completely unique.

Some scientists liken the seawater deep in the blue holes to the primordial soup of early Earth, and research is being conducted on these bacteria to supplement our understanding of how life might evolve on other planets. Thus, divers who brave the depths of the caves here are stepping into another world, one fundamentally unlike the one above. This place is hostile to us, and to life as we know it.

So, then, this begs the question: if the the eyes of Andros are toxic to complex life, and the only things to be found are primeval, alien bacteria, then what exactly is plucking swimmers from the surface and consuming their bodies without leaving a trace?