To begin my Bahamas Odyssey, I chose the most accessible of all the islands in the Bahamas—New Providence.

Most will know this island as the home of the nation's capital and most populous city, Nassau. There is a renaissance of development in the "downtown" area of Nassau and on nearby Paradise Island. Cruise ships and upscale resorts like the Atlantis Paradise Island and the British Colonial Hilton Nassau have lured hundreds of thousands of tourists to the island, but, unfortunately, many of these visitors see little beyond their resort or a few nearby tourist attractions. On the other hand, visiting divers have learned to look farther afield and have discovered the greatest reward lies in a different direction, to the southwest and beneath the sea.

Traveling divers have long recognized that the southwest end of New Providence Island is a happening spot. In fact, as testament to the growing popularity of New Providence as a dive destination here's an interesting fact: more divers visited the wrecks and reefs off the southwest end of New Providence in 1999 than collectively visited the island of Bonaire. That's a significant statistic. Clearly, divers are reading about it in the dive media, but to have this level of popularity they are also telling their friends and writing about it on the Internet. Obviously the buzz on southwest New Providence is very, very positive.

Fortunately for me, I have good friends in dive operations on New Providence, Stuart Cove's Dive South Ocean graciously agreed to host portions of the tour. Stuart Cove provides extraordinary service and access to the best of New Providence diving.