seaangel
Guest
I am back from my first liveaboard experience this past weekend. I am ready to go back again, it was terrific. I was with a group of divers from my LDS and we had a blast on the Gulfstream Eagle out of West Palm Beach. I had some gear problems that I related in the Computer threads so I won't repeat myself on that account.
But the rest of the trip was much like this:
We boarded the Gulfstream Eagle at about 10:20 pm Thursday night and set up our gear on the deck, put our regulators and BCD's on our tanks and stowed our bags away. We went into the main salon area where we were briefed by one of the Captains, we had 3 captains on board. Captain Ron was with us most of the time and he managed the dives off the deck. We all sat around and settled into our cabins by 2:00am to get some sleep. Captain Mark, the owner came on board through the night and we began over to Grand Bahama. When we woke to the smell of coffee and bacon we were there.
Friday am after clearing customs at West End we moved out to do our first dive. This was to familiarize us with the water, the boat and just to get started. As I already posted I had my computer to fail. Read the Computer thread if you really want to know how that went. The dive was beautiful and other than the
computer problem all went well. We moved on to another site and made another dive this one was a little deeper and had a fair current. The visibility on both was 60-80feet. Water was a bit cool
but my 3mm was adequate. I took pictuires which I am about to go pick up. We did another dive again after lunch, then a twilight dive that I sat out as well as the night dive. The water was a bit rough and I was pretty tired.
Saturday we did two am dives and another 2 after lunch. Each site was prettier than the last. I saw so many fish, and lobster. We also saw, several turtles and the coral reefs were very impressive. Saw an occasional reef shark that would dart off, but not any that hung around. We saw a 4ft spotted moray out in the open in front of some coral he put up with us for a bit then swam back into the coral. He was really fun.
Sunday we did two am dives, the first was at a site called Frontier Land, we were on the hunt for sharks. The coral heads were awesome and the reef teeming with life. As we crossed the reef and ran down the length of it to return to the boat we were circled by 5-6 reef sharks. They kept a distance of about 30-40 ft.
and circled around us. They never came close in though, which I decided is a good thing, I don't really like being too close to them.
Well, some of my dive buddies were not satisfied so they begged
Captain Mark for more, they wanted to see Hammerheads and more. So I sat out the next dive, I wasn't that crazy to see them up close and personal. They said one Hammerhead about8-10 ft. long was right under the boat. Glad I was on topside.
The rest of the afternoon dives were awesome, only a few sharks here and there mostly reef sharks and nurse sharks. I saw a very large grouper he was the grand daddy I am sure. We played with a sea cucumber and found several conch shells too. Sunday night we went into port so there was no night dive.
Monday morning two more really good dives at the tunnels, Those were really nice cut throughs in the coral heads. I had my picture taken sitting on the bottom. I hope that it turns out. One thing that was consistent was the currents. We had strong current flows which made getting back on the boat difficult at times.
Like I said though I am ready to go again, I really did enjoy it all. I learned a lot too, as this was my first liveaboard. I think it was the best time I have had diving yet.
But the rest of the trip was much like this:
We boarded the Gulfstream Eagle at about 10:20 pm Thursday night and set up our gear on the deck, put our regulators and BCD's on our tanks and stowed our bags away. We went into the main salon area where we were briefed by one of the Captains, we had 3 captains on board. Captain Ron was with us most of the time and he managed the dives off the deck. We all sat around and settled into our cabins by 2:00am to get some sleep. Captain Mark, the owner came on board through the night and we began over to Grand Bahama. When we woke to the smell of coffee and bacon we were there.
Friday am after clearing customs at West End we moved out to do our first dive. This was to familiarize us with the water, the boat and just to get started. As I already posted I had my computer to fail. Read the Computer thread if you really want to know how that went. The dive was beautiful and other than the
computer problem all went well. We moved on to another site and made another dive this one was a little deeper and had a fair current. The visibility on both was 60-80feet. Water was a bit cool
but my 3mm was adequate. I took pictuires which I am about to go pick up. We did another dive again after lunch, then a twilight dive that I sat out as well as the night dive. The water was a bit rough and I was pretty tired.
Saturday we did two am dives and another 2 after lunch. Each site was prettier than the last. I saw so many fish, and lobster. We also saw, several turtles and the coral reefs were very impressive. Saw an occasional reef shark that would dart off, but not any that hung around. We saw a 4ft spotted moray out in the open in front of some coral he put up with us for a bit then swam back into the coral. He was really fun.
Sunday we did two am dives, the first was at a site called Frontier Land, we were on the hunt for sharks. The coral heads were awesome and the reef teeming with life. As we crossed the reef and ran down the length of it to return to the boat we were circled by 5-6 reef sharks. They kept a distance of about 30-40 ft.
and circled around us. They never came close in though, which I decided is a good thing, I don't really like being too close to them.
Well, some of my dive buddies were not satisfied so they begged
Captain Mark for more, they wanted to see Hammerheads and more. So I sat out the next dive, I wasn't that crazy to see them up close and personal. They said one Hammerhead about8-10 ft. long was right under the boat. Glad I was on topside.
The rest of the afternoon dives were awesome, only a few sharks here and there mostly reef sharks and nurse sharks. I saw a very large grouper he was the grand daddy I am sure. We played with a sea cucumber and found several conch shells too. Sunday night we went into port so there was no night dive.
Monday morning two more really good dives at the tunnels, Those were really nice cut throughs in the coral heads. I had my picture taken sitting on the bottom. I hope that it turns out. One thing that was consistent was the currents. We had strong current flows which made getting back on the boat difficult at times.
Like I said though I am ready to go again, I really did enjoy it all. I learned a lot too, as this was my first liveaboard. I think it was the best time I have had diving yet.
