Protondecay123
Contributor
Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City, NC has an excellent experience! This isn’t for everyone and has a few caveats. You must show up at the shop/pier by 6 am. Most of the dive sites are about a 2 hour transit. When paying for a full day you are only paying for a two tank dive. So time wise it breaks down roughly into 2 hour transit to the site. Dive wreck at 100+ feet. Nearly 2 hour surface interval. Dive that site again or move. 2 hour transit back. We were back to the pier about 2 pm. Caveats: 1: The weather is highly variable. I was booked for three days flew in and got canceled 2 out of 3 days in mid-July which is “prime season. Unfortunately Dive Centers don’t control the weather! 2: This isn’t a “ concierge “ service. You will have to carry your gear to the boat, carry your tanks to the boat and assemble your gear. Quite honestly I don’t really care for people messing with my gear. I had an o-ring on my DIN connection on my Poseidon Xstream Deep torn and leak air after someone else attached it to a tank. 3: There is No Guarantee that you will dive any given dive site. Lots of people want to do the U-352 for obvious reasons, but to me the experience with Sharks at Aeolus and Caribsea is hard to beat. 4: This isn’t for beginners! It’s diving 115 ft in the open ocean 30 miles off shore with current at depth. You need to be confident and Experienced! Have you ever been Experienced? Positives: The most incredible Sand Tiger Shark experience ever in my limited experience. One of the videographers took a photo and counted 64 Sand Tiger Sharks at the Caribsea in a single frame. At one point my dive buddy and I were cornered by 7-10 on the port side. I literally could have moved my hand 3 inches and touched the nose of a Sand Tiger right in front of me. The current was about a knot and a half. SE to Nw at site. Olympus uses weighted tag lines which are very helpful for ingress and egress. Surface temp was 88 f thermocline at 60 ft. Temp at depth was 74f. 3 mil wet suit kept me cozy. Some dove with no rash guard, but both got stung by small jellyfish. We did see a big group of barracuda hanging around the tag lines. Pro Tips: They have lodging available for $30/day barracks/bunk bed style a few blocks away. Also they have Aluminum 100’s, Steel 100’s and 120’s, if you don’t bring your own.
