theskull
November 10th, 2007, 05:18 PM
Blackbeards Cruise, Nov 3-9, 2007
Trip was planned and organized by The Great American Diving Co., and there were 19 of us locals, along with 4 extras who bought the left-over spots we were unable to sell locally.
In spite of a tropical storm having just blown through the area and predictions of high winds and scattered showers for the whole week, we had 5 days of beautiful sunny days with calm seas and good-to-great visibility. At worst we experienced 20 ft. visibility, and on the best dives we got better than 100 ft. visibility. Water temps were between 79-81 F, except for the shark feeding dive, which was a little chillier 75 F while we stayed motionless in the sand watching about 15 reef sharks ravage a frozen chumball that was suspended from a float.
Critters were abundant, especially lionfish. We also had plenty of moray eels, lobsters, giant crabs, grouper, cowfish, triggerfish, squid, sea turtles, yellow snapper, jellyfish, sea urchins, arrow crabs, scorpionfish, banded coral shrimp, and reef sharks. There were also some octopus sightings, and anemones, sea cucumbers, flamingo tongues, Christmas tree worms, tunicates, brittle stars, basket stars, etc.
Our dives included wreck dives, night dives, and deep wall dives, but was mostly easy reefs.
The crew was pleasant and adequate (5 of them), and food was plentiful and tasty. It was nice to start the trip in Freeport and make 2 dives right away, rather than the previous mode of leaving Miami and beginning the trip by crossing the Gulf Stream to get to the Bahamas.
The trip was somewhat marred by an unsuccessful attempt to return to Grand Bahama from Bimini against the wind and waves in the middle of a storm that was expected to pass over us during port night, but instead stalled in the middle of the deep sea right in our path. This caused us to return to port in Bimini after battling the rough sea for about 5 hours, making it impossible for a number of us to stay on board and still make our return flights Friday morning. With an apology but no assistance from the captain or crew, we were on our own to remedy this situation; fortunately one of our own took charge and chartered a couple little prop planes and made hotel arrangements for us so that we could get back in a timely fashion. I was among the 12 who were out of pocket an extra $150 to fly back to Grand Bahama, which I know made a significant dent in the crew's tip at the end of the trip--partly because it ate up much of the discretionary budget we had all planned, but even more so because the crew were so little help when the route they chose ended up messing up the schedule they had insisted we adhere to (the other 2 Blackbeards boats chose different routes and both made it back as planned).
theskull
Trip was planned and organized by The Great American Diving Co., and there were 19 of us locals, along with 4 extras who bought the left-over spots we were unable to sell locally.
In spite of a tropical storm having just blown through the area and predictions of high winds and scattered showers for the whole week, we had 5 days of beautiful sunny days with calm seas and good-to-great visibility. At worst we experienced 20 ft. visibility, and on the best dives we got better than 100 ft. visibility. Water temps were between 79-81 F, except for the shark feeding dive, which was a little chillier 75 F while we stayed motionless in the sand watching about 15 reef sharks ravage a frozen chumball that was suspended from a float.
Critters were abundant, especially lionfish. We also had plenty of moray eels, lobsters, giant crabs, grouper, cowfish, triggerfish, squid, sea turtles, yellow snapper, jellyfish, sea urchins, arrow crabs, scorpionfish, banded coral shrimp, and reef sharks. There were also some octopus sightings, and anemones, sea cucumbers, flamingo tongues, Christmas tree worms, tunicates, brittle stars, basket stars, etc.
Our dives included wreck dives, night dives, and deep wall dives, but was mostly easy reefs.
The crew was pleasant and adequate (5 of them), and food was plentiful and tasty. It was nice to start the trip in Freeport and make 2 dives right away, rather than the previous mode of leaving Miami and beginning the trip by crossing the Gulf Stream to get to the Bahamas.
The trip was somewhat marred by an unsuccessful attempt to return to Grand Bahama from Bimini against the wind and waves in the middle of a storm that was expected to pass over us during port night, but instead stalled in the middle of the deep sea right in our path. This caused us to return to port in Bimini after battling the rough sea for about 5 hours, making it impossible for a number of us to stay on board and still make our return flights Friday morning. With an apology but no assistance from the captain or crew, we were on our own to remedy this situation; fortunately one of our own took charge and chartered a couple little prop planes and made hotel arrangements for us so that we could get back in a timely fashion. I was among the 12 who were out of pocket an extra $150 to fly back to Grand Bahama, which I know made a significant dent in the crew's tip at the end of the trip--partly because it ate up much of the discretionary budget we had all planned, but even more so because the crew were so little help when the route they chose ended up messing up the schedule they had insisted we adhere to (the other 2 Blackbeards boats chose different routes and both made it back as planned).
theskull