Caribbean Explorer II Trip Report (May 1 to May 9, 2009)
Our dive shop, Underwater Playground, Edgewood, MD chartered the Caribbean Explorer the week of May 1 to May 9, 2009. As a disclaimer, I have done 4 trips on the Blackbeard's sailboats, 1 trip on the Cat Ppalu (also owned by Blackbeard's and one trip on the Nekton Pilot. This was mine and our groups first time on the Caribbean Explorer (CEXII), and we were looking forward to a good week of diving. We decided to fly in a day early to avoid any problems with late flights and took the 6am flight out of Baltimore, MD to Miami with connection to Georgetown, Bahamas on the island of Great Exuma. Our flights went well with the only problem being a 1 hour flight delay in Miami. The connecting flight is aboard an American Eagle turboprop. Even with 2 dive bags each, our entire luggage made it on the flight with us, which we learned was a sometimes unusual occurrence. Luckily for us everything made it with us. We stayed at the Peace and Plenty Inn on Great Exuma for Friday night. The P&P has an onsite restaurant with Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. We decided to experience some real Bahamian life and walked about 1 mile north along the main road to the island restaurants. We had a good time in one of local bars and the people were very friendly. Upon returning to the P&P about 9:30 we found that they have a DJ and dancing on Friday nights, Even though the dance floor and DJ were right outside my balcony, we were so tired after having gotten up at 2am that morning, that I went right to sleep even with a concert going on outside my window. It ended about midnight and was very quite thereafter. We spent the next day relaxing around the pool, and eating. The P&P was very accommodating and welcomed us staying and using the pool during the day, even leaving one room for us to use, even though checkout time is 11am. Dave the captain from the CEXII had come to the local bar Friday night and met with us and answered a few questions. Dave was very friendly and helpful along with his whole crew the next day. Since we had 18 people we arranged for a taxi to transport all our bags from the P&P to the dock on Saturday afternoon while we all strolled down past the straw market and grocery store to the docks. It's less than a 10 minute stroll. On arrival we were met by the crew who showed us our cabins, got us assigned to our spots on the dive deck and helped everyone get sorted out. Compared to the Blackbeard's sailboats, the rooms on the CEXII are like comparing the Hilton to the Super8. The rooms all have in-room heads and showers which is luxury compared to the shared manual pump heads on Blackbeard's. Don't get me wrong, I like the Blackbeard's diving and am going back on them in June, but the accommodations here are much better. After getting all settled in dinner was at 5:30 pm. Steak, baked potatoes, steamed vegetables, salad, fresh baked rolls and fresh fruit set the bar pretty high for Jane (the cook) for the rest of the week. I'll let you know how she does later on. Saturday night was spent at the dock with a departure time set for 4am to head to Long Island for our first dive. Since I am writing this trip report while on the boat, I'll try and write a daily report each day to cover that day's activity. The crew consists of Captain Dave, Engineer Ken, Cook Jane and Dive deck crew Austin, Curtis and Demi. The crew are various nationalities and have been with the vessel for varying amounts of time. Captain Dave is the longest with just over a year in command. Nitrox is available on-board for $150 a week, or $10 a fill. Their usual mix is 32% but several of our divers requested a leaner mix and they accommodated us by reducing the mix to 28%, making the max depth for both Air and Nitrox divers 130 ft. The NITROX system is a membrane system banked so everyone has to use the same mix. Captain Dave was pretty confident of good weather and we were looking forward to some good wall diving. Of the 6 crew members 5 were dive instructors. 1 member of our group was doing her Open Water certification dives with me and 3 were doing their Advanced Open Water certifications with me. The dive boat's only request was that we provide them with a copy of our shop insurance policy listing me as an instructor and the CEXII as an additional insured. We had already taken care of that before arriving so we were good to go. Two of our group decided to take the SDI Solo Diver course from an on-board instructor during the week. That's enough for tonight.
Our dive shop, Underwater Playground, Edgewood, MD chartered the Caribbean Explorer the week of May 1 to May 9, 2009. As a disclaimer, I have done 4 trips on the Blackbeard's sailboats, 1 trip on the Cat Ppalu (also owned by Blackbeard's and one trip on the Nekton Pilot. This was mine and our groups first time on the Caribbean Explorer (CEXII), and we were looking forward to a good week of diving. We decided to fly in a day early to avoid any problems with late flights and took the 6am flight out of Baltimore, MD to Miami with connection to Georgetown, Bahamas on the island of Great Exuma. Our flights went well with the only problem being a 1 hour flight delay in Miami. The connecting flight is aboard an American Eagle turboprop. Even with 2 dive bags each, our entire luggage made it on the flight with us, which we learned was a sometimes unusual occurrence. Luckily for us everything made it with us. We stayed at the Peace and Plenty Inn on Great Exuma for Friday night. The P&P has an onsite restaurant with Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. We decided to experience some real Bahamian life and walked about 1 mile north along the main road to the island restaurants. We had a good time in one of local bars and the people were very friendly. Upon returning to the P&P about 9:30 we found that they have a DJ and dancing on Friday nights, Even though the dance floor and DJ were right outside my balcony, we were so tired after having gotten up at 2am that morning, that I went right to sleep even with a concert going on outside my window. It ended about midnight and was very quite thereafter. We spent the next day relaxing around the pool, and eating. The P&P was very accommodating and welcomed us staying and using the pool during the day, even leaving one room for us to use, even though checkout time is 11am. Dave the captain from the CEXII had come to the local bar Friday night and met with us and answered a few questions. Dave was very friendly and helpful along with his whole crew the next day. Since we had 18 people we arranged for a taxi to transport all our bags from the P&P to the dock on Saturday afternoon while we all strolled down past the straw market and grocery store to the docks. It's less than a 10 minute stroll. On arrival we were met by the crew who showed us our cabins, got us assigned to our spots on the dive deck and helped everyone get sorted out. Compared to the Blackbeard's sailboats, the rooms on the CEXII are like comparing the Hilton to the Super8. The rooms all have in-room heads and showers which is luxury compared to the shared manual pump heads on Blackbeard's. Don't get me wrong, I like the Blackbeard's diving and am going back on them in June, but the accommodations here are much better. After getting all settled in dinner was at 5:30 pm. Steak, baked potatoes, steamed vegetables, salad, fresh baked rolls and fresh fruit set the bar pretty high for Jane (the cook) for the rest of the week. I'll let you know how she does later on. Saturday night was spent at the dock with a departure time set for 4am to head to Long Island for our first dive. Since I am writing this trip report while on the boat, I'll try and write a daily report each day to cover that day's activity. The crew consists of Captain Dave, Engineer Ken, Cook Jane and Dive deck crew Austin, Curtis and Demi. The crew are various nationalities and have been with the vessel for varying amounts of time. Captain Dave is the longest with just over a year in command. Nitrox is available on-board for $150 a week, or $10 a fill. Their usual mix is 32% but several of our divers requested a leaner mix and they accommodated us by reducing the mix to 28%, making the max depth for both Air and Nitrox divers 130 ft. The NITROX system is a membrane system banked so everyone has to use the same mix. Captain Dave was pretty confident of good weather and we were looking forward to some good wall diving. Of the 6 crew members 5 were dive instructors. 1 member of our group was doing her Open Water certification dives with me and 3 were doing their Advanced Open Water certifications with me. The dive boat's only request was that we provide them with a copy of our shop insurance policy listing me as an instructor and the CEXII as an additional insured. We had already taken care of that before arriving so we were good to go. Two of our group decided to take the SDI Solo Diver course from an on-board instructor during the week. That's enough for tonight.
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