Calm Liveaboards VS Thrill-adrenaline driven liveaboards

[SeaHound]

I have been reading about different liveaboards and what kind of experience they would offer in terms of the dives themselves. From what I understand, most liveaboards could easily be classified among these two, extremely broad categories.

1. There are thrill and adrenaline driven liveaboards like Galapagos and Cocos where the dives would be a little more challanging and the thrill of marine life would make them adrenaline driven dive trips.

2. Then there are ultra meditative- calm driven liveaboards that offer more of an inner peace / semi-spiritual experience with flat calm seas, breath taking underwater topography and abandoned wrecks etc.

I thought for discussion purposes I should start a thread that could shed some light on how some of the worlds most advertised liveaboards could be classified according to the above general categories. If someone was looking for the first category of liveaboard experience (i.e Sheer heart pumping Thrill) which liveaboards should they consider? and if they were looking for a meditative / spiritual experience which ones should they look towards ?

Your experiences / inputs would be grately appreciated ...

 

[TSandM]

I've only done three liveaboard trips, but I can't fit any of them into either of your categories.

My trip on the MV Tala (Red Sea Explorers) wasn't white-knuckle diving, but it wasn't meditative or spiritual, for the most part. If I had to categorize it, it was mostly giggly, bubbly exuberant FUN. Scootering three wrecks in one dive; playing scooter tag in the holds of the Thistlegorm; circumnavigating Little Brother, chasing hammerheads off the Numidia wreck and swimming with a huge pod of dolphins. We went into the water thirsty for what would make us grin and high five one another, and over and over again, we found it.

The two liveaboards I've done in the Channel Islands were probably more on the meditative side -- I think swimming through kelp forests with the sunlight pouring down through them tends to be that way. But some of the most challenging diving conditions I've faced were on those trips -- rough surface water, and ripping currents.

So I can't put those trips into either category, really.

 

[scubafanatic]

I'm thinking a liveaboard off the coast of Somalia would be pretty exciting........

 

[Damselfish]

I don't get those categories and wouldn't put any of the liveaboards I've been on in either bucket. It's more of a continuum in various directions, plus the same liveaboard could be much different based on conditions, the people on the trip, and who knows what.

 

[Mossman]

I likewise disagree with the OP. It's my feeling that the best liveaboards offer a mix of dive types to keep the diving from getting redundant. Even Galapagos and Cocos liveaboards offer "meditative" dives - what could be more meditative than sitting in the rocks at Wolf Island watching the eagle rays hover in the "breeze" or sitting on your knees at the base of the Silverado cleaning station watching the silvertips getting cleaned?

The least "adrenalin" I've experienced on a liveaboard was our Nekton Pilot Belize itinerary - save for the last half-day, the boat barely moved and we dove very similar-appearing sites off Lighthouse in slack current with excellent viz. While very pretty, and the terrain varied slightly from site to site, I found it kind of boring after a while. With the Pilot out of commission, the other liveaboards do the Blue Hole and that would likely be considered "adrenalin" more than "meditative" thus two more examples of exceptions to the OP's theory.

 

[SeaHound]

I am quite aware of the generalization in my post. There is no liveaboard or dive destination that would be purely "thrill driven" or purely "calm." It would be a mixture of both along with a few other sentiments that my post excludes. Still, by the end of the day when I sit down and sum up the experience, most dive sites tend to fall one way or the other.

When I go to dive Morehead City North Carolina, I know that boat rides and ocean conditions would make the experience a roller coaster ride! Once in the water I know there wont be colorful reefs but tons of twisted metal! The thrill of diving NC is very different from the calm of Key Largo where even the boat ride feels different. Underwater terrain offers a peaceful zero gravity experience over the an extremely colorful landscape. I get to see and photograph colors there that don't even have a name outside water. Of course in both dive destinations there are exceptions that defy my classification but NC diving is more like a "mission" whereas Key Largo is more "meditative."