Scuba diving in Nassau

When I was booking my trip to Atlantis I originally planned to do 3 days of scuba diving with the Stuart Cove's dive operation. Diving is pretty expensive in Nassau at $105.00 pp for a two tank dive. I thought I could put together a dive package at a reduced rate but none were available. My husband suggested that we wait til we got to our destination and to 'see how I felt" before we booked any diving. Predictably, I get sick on every vacation so I agreed with his reasoning.
I was pretty lucky on this vacation. Although I had to take zomig 5 of 7 days I was there my headaches were relatively manageable. At least I did not vomit or have my head packed in ice on any of the days spent here.
Thank God.
The wind was starting to really pick up blowing from the SW. The flags posted on the beach were red flags which was not a good sign. I called the dive shop and said they were still going out but heading north to a safe area.
We booked the trip.
A van picked up us divers. It was a good hour and 10 minutes to the shop. The dive trip was going to be an all day affair.
Dive #91-October 28th, 1994. I went diving with Stuart Cove's dive operation.In my log book I described how "beautiful the reefs were and how many colorful fish there were".
I was pretty chuffed to get in the water.
Dive # 787-April 25, 2010. What a difference 16 years makes.
The reefs were barren and covered with sand and green algae. What was most remarkable is that there were no fish. No little dither fish such as blue chromis or damsel fish that are always present nor where there any nosey little grunts or parrot fish.
The only fish I saw on this two tank dive were two (non-native) lion fish.
WTF
Apparently there has been this problem of this non-native invasive species breeding rapidly without any predators eating up all the native species fry (in addition to humans over fishing, coral bleaching and pollution).
The reefs were completely strip mined.
It was really sad.
The lionfish, Pterois volitans, are a native species of fish located in the ocean waters off of Indonesia. Apparently they had been introduced to waters off of Florida due to careless marine aquarists who no longer wanted them.(although this is just a theory)They are beautiful but poisonous. Supposedly they have caused the decline of 70% of the fish population.
So far the only predator these lionfish have are the Goliath groupers. Sadly, these beautiful large friendly fish have been slaughtered for fish & chips. Back in 1990 I saw at least 5 of these giant groupers the size of volkwagen bugs off of Freeport Bahamas when I went on shark dive.
I wonder if there are any left.
Needless to say, diving was the only disappointment on this trip.