Chris,
I'm SO disapointed. I worked overnight on Friday, got home a little before 8 and helped Alice pack up the rental car. ($200 to put 2100 miles on someone elses car is a pretty easy call) I was sound asleep in the back before we on 95 South. Woke up in Jersey and realized that Norm was left behind, sitting on the piano where you couldn't help but notice him on the way out the door. Alice refused to turn around and go back for him. Damn!
Dave,
The boat was nice, if a bit crowded. They had anywhere from 18 to 25 divers on board with room for probably 30. They have individual storage areas under each spot on the boat so you can rinse off your gear on the dock and leave your gear on the boat at night. They lock up the individual boxes at night. That was nice.
Fortunately, the wrecks we visited were all pretty good sized so I only had the feeling I was in a crowd once. That was just because we were the first ones in the water on a pretty broken up wreck with crappy vis so I ran a line. By the time we turned around to head back everyone else had showed up by following our line and most of them turned around and swam back with us, at least until we got back to the main body of the wreck. Oh well, not a big deal but it was a bit crowed there for a few minutes.
They seemed to be doing quite well. Like I said, the boat was pretty full midweek and they run more boats on the weekend. The majority of the wrecks are pretty far offshore with an average transit time of 1 1/2 to 2 hours to the dive site. They want you at the shop at 6 am for a 7 am departure. (Ouch!) We either did two dives on the same site or headed to another for the second dive, depending on the conditions on the first site and divers preference. Cost for the two tank day was $125 per person. Rental AL 100's with 30% Nitrox were $19 each. They stuffed a lot of air into those 100's, and with the warm water and the wicked easy princess diving we ran out of time LONG before we ran out of air. (On the first dive of Day Two I owed a 15 minute hang and still climbed back on the boat with 1100 psi.) We were back on the dock each day by 4, usually earlier and there are a gazzillion places nearby to help you extend the narcosis into the evening.
Didn't take any pics of the boat, I'd guess it at 75', moves right along at just under 20 knots. Has a large interior salon with a large, roomy head. The beanbags up on the sundeck were a nice way to spend your surface interval. Giant stride entry off each side with drop lines amidship and at the quarter leading down to a hang line at 15'. Those hang lines lead forward to the anchor line and slope down to join it at around 40 feet or so. They also hang a regulator off each aft hang line in case someone spent their air a little to freely. Two center post boarding ladders make climbing back onboard while wearing your fins a snap, there are multiple well placed hand holds. There is a mate stationed on the swim platform to assist divers climbing onboard, they took your camera and pulled off your fins and would walk unsteady divers back to their spot if needed.
We'll be returning again, it was fun, easy diving with tons of life swimming around the rust. And nothing is cooler than those sharks. If you keep your eyes open you can come back to the boat with a handfull of sharks teeth from the bottom. We ended up with almost 40 of them.
PTN
