We pitched this trip as an experimental sawfish and shark safari specifically because it had not been done before and we knew that even if we found sawfish, getting images of them would be quite difficult. Once we got to Andros, many in our group made it clear that they only wanted to see sawfish and they didn’t care about seeing any other species so the pressure was on!
The good news was that one of our guests that had arrived early, found a sawfish while the rest of us were still in transit. Spirits were high. We rented 6 bonefishing skiffs to search the channels that lace the island archipelago but sadly, after two days combing the mangroves, no more sawfish were sighted and we resigned ourselves to looking for other species.
On the non-sawfish-hunting days, we chummed for sharks on a beautiful reef and enjoyed encounters with silky sharks at the navy buoy in the 6,000m deep Tongue of the Ocean.
A combination of mechanical difficulties and windy weather made the diving difficult so we lost two days of searching but, to be fair, we did spot six different species of sharks during the week including: blacknose sharks, silky sharks, nurse sharks, lemon sharks, Caribbean reef sharks and a great hammerhead. We also encountered large stingrays and a handful of eagle rays.
Given enough time, I’m sure that Andros would deliver sawfish but it is clearly too hit or miss for a one week trip. If you’d like to give it a try, I will happily share what I’ve learned but we are not planning to come back here. I have another lead on these illusive animals and if that pans out, you can expect a new BFE destination to be posted at the end of the summer. Stay tuned!
