Looking for first Liveaboard

[pediatron]

I am considering my first liveaboard experience and am looking for some advice. My husband and I have dove all over Mexico and the Carribean and recently went to Fiji. I have avoided liveaboards due to the fact that I get seasick. I seem to have this under fairly good control lately with bonine (twice daily!) and really would like to try a liveaboard. For my first experience, I would like a place that is as calm as reasonably possible and probably should limit my experience to 7 days max (just in case I am miserable). We live in Reno so don't want to go crazy with super hard to get to locations for first trip of this kind. Any recommendations???

 

[diversteve]

You might try Cuan Law (BVI's) or Aquacat (Exuma). Both are big and wide - Cuan Law is a tri-maran so more stable.

The Aqua Cat offers luxury accommodations, a spacious main salon and an extremely smooth ride.

Cuan Law:

Her size and the triple hull design provide extreme stability,

We just did the Turks/Caicos Explorer last spring and were tossed around pretty good - walking on deck was hard some days. The week before us they had big swells that kept them out of the water a couple of days. So probably not the trip for you.

Or the Utila Aggressor as they cross between Utila and Roatan - that's a rough ride also at certain times. We had to cancel a daytrip once from Roatan as the captain told us it would beat the .... out of the boat. I've read the Cayman Aggressor can be similar - sometimes they're not able to make the crossing to Little Cayman due to the weather.

 

[vladimir]

The Belize Aggressor, between April and June, has been as calm as it gets on my two trips. You can dive off of the big boat, so no bouncing around in little skiffs.

 

[DeputyDan]

There is key information in Valdimir's post. And that is - the time of year you plan on going!!!

Some areas are much more windy and thus rougher than at other times.

I was going to suggest the PH boat in Belize during the late spring early summer time frame.

Have not personally done the Aquacat boat in the Bahamas but its on my short list (to do)!

 

[Shasta_man]

Palau would be very calm due to mostly anchoring amongst the islands the whole time. Usually only 1 trip to Peleliu.

 

[Mossman]

I second Palau if it's not considered by the OP "super hard to get to". Reno to LAX to HNL to GUM to KOR isn't exactly difficult since it can be done on 737s and larger using major carriers (Southwest, Continental), but it's still a lot of travel.

The Cayman Aggressor would work if the OP "lucks out" and they skip the crossing to the sister islands but that's entirely weather dependent. Maybe the Utila/Bay Islands Aggressor? I don't recall the waters between Utila and Roatan looking very rough on my one (land-based)trip to Roatan, but we didn't stray too far off the Roatan coast.

 

[The Chairman]

The Aquacat is awesomely stable, even in bad weather. One of the better luxury liveaboards out there.