pjayjarrett
Registered
Just finished a week on Wind Dancer (July 19- 26), here is the lowdown...
Overall, an excellent value for a liveaboard dive trip.
The Crew: The crew is fantastic. They are very attentive and responsive to diver needs. they have a couple of new divemasters who are progressing but the two main DMs who accompany you on the dives are very good. The DMs don't baby sit, but they keep an eye out for safety related issues and make sure you are well briefed for the dive and they do require that you follow certain protocals, such as the use of sufrace marker bouys, that are needed for the type of diving. The DMs are with you on every dive but don't mandate that every buddy pair sticks close tothe DM (unless conditions are a bit dicey).
The ship: It is in very good shape, it just came out of a yard period so there were no 'mechanical' issues on the boat (or at least none that I was aware of or any that affected the diving schedule). I was in a double stateroom and I thought it was more than adequate from a size perspective (you are not really spending a bunch of time in your stateroom anyhow) and the linens, towels, robes, etc are all in great shape.
The food: Overall it is very good. Breakfast is a combo of served to order and buffet for fruits and cereal. Lunch is buffet style and dinner is a seated dinner every night - which was great becasue it really encouraged people to get to know one another. A wide variety of beverages available at all times day and night - alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
The diving: it's almost all drift diving, with some variation (conditions allowing). Basically we made our way from Grenada up to St vincent & Grenadines. I dove nitrox (32%) during the trip and my tank was always around 3500# (cooled pressure). You set up your gear on the main dive deck of the ship and then it's moved down to the dive tenders and stays there all week (they fill the tanks on the tenders, etc.). you do a back roll entry into the water from the dive tender (kind of fun). The reefs are in great shape and very prolific fish life. I saw turtles and all type of eels on every dive, lots of rays (saw the biggest spotted eagle ray I have ever seen -thought it was a manta at first!),a few sharks, octopi, squid and lots of macro stuff. The main attraction for the diving is the small stuff, so you need to be good with your bouyancy and comfortable in mild to strong currents to enjoy the diving. You have to slow down and look closely or you miss alot - sometimes this takes a day to get used to doing if you are more accustomed to looking for pelagics. The vis was good, usually 60ft or so - since there is more current you don't get the 100ft stuff. We did 4 to 5 dives a day. We only had two night dives (and that is my only complaint of the week) -one on a wreck (saw an enourmous green moray out in the open around the wreck)and one along one of the small 'islands' that was a combo patch reef and wall dive. Most of our profiles were 70-80 feet with 45-60 min (depending on your air consumption and if your are using nitrox or air). If your buddy was an air hog on the dive it's not a problem - they just deploy their surface marker bouy, do their safety stop and then the dive tender picks them up. At the end of the dive time the DM deploys a surface marker bouy and everybody does their safety stop and then surface somewhat together around the marker bouy and the dive tender is there to pick you up. At the end of every dive you board the main ship fromt he tender, had a hot fresh water shower on the dive deck and then you were handed a hot towel and given a brief neck and shoulder rub down and given a hot out of the oven snack!
I did 22 dives for the week and I sat out 2 due to battling a bit of congestion one day. We were always the only ones at a dive site - no compay except the occasional sail boat/yacht. We did our tranists at night after all the diving was done.
A few people had luggage issues (airlines) and the crew was great at keeping on top of the airlines and getting the luggage out to the ship a few days later via an inter-island ferry. So if you do this trip i would recommend coming in the day before and minimize the number of flight connections in getting to grenada. You will end up having a day to burn in grenada before you can board the ship (they board at 5pm) or you can do a morning boat dive with Aquanauts in Grenada (like i did!) to do an equipment ckeck out while waiting to get on the ship.
So, overall a great week of diving with a really fun and experienced crew. I would recommend the charter if you are interested in something a bit off the beaten path but not able to travel to really remote destinations in the south pacific.
Overall, an excellent value for a liveaboard dive trip.
The Crew: The crew is fantastic. They are very attentive and responsive to diver needs. they have a couple of new divemasters who are progressing but the two main DMs who accompany you on the dives are very good. The DMs don't baby sit, but they keep an eye out for safety related issues and make sure you are well briefed for the dive and they do require that you follow certain protocals, such as the use of sufrace marker bouys, that are needed for the type of diving. The DMs are with you on every dive but don't mandate that every buddy pair sticks close tothe DM (unless conditions are a bit dicey).
The ship: It is in very good shape, it just came out of a yard period so there were no 'mechanical' issues on the boat (or at least none that I was aware of or any that affected the diving schedule). I was in a double stateroom and I thought it was more than adequate from a size perspective (you are not really spending a bunch of time in your stateroom anyhow) and the linens, towels, robes, etc are all in great shape.
The food: Overall it is very good. Breakfast is a combo of served to order and buffet for fruits and cereal. Lunch is buffet style and dinner is a seated dinner every night - which was great becasue it really encouraged people to get to know one another. A wide variety of beverages available at all times day and night - alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
The diving: it's almost all drift diving, with some variation (conditions allowing). Basically we made our way from Grenada up to St vincent & Grenadines. I dove nitrox (32%) during the trip and my tank was always around 3500# (cooled pressure). You set up your gear on the main dive deck of the ship and then it's moved down to the dive tenders and stays there all week (they fill the tanks on the tenders, etc.). you do a back roll entry into the water from the dive tender (kind of fun). The reefs are in great shape and very prolific fish life. I saw turtles and all type of eels on every dive, lots of rays (saw the biggest spotted eagle ray I have ever seen -thought it was a manta at first!),a few sharks, octopi, squid and lots of macro stuff. The main attraction for the diving is the small stuff, so you need to be good with your bouyancy and comfortable in mild to strong currents to enjoy the diving. You have to slow down and look closely or you miss alot - sometimes this takes a day to get used to doing if you are more accustomed to looking for pelagics. The vis was good, usually 60ft or so - since there is more current you don't get the 100ft stuff. We did 4 to 5 dives a day. We only had two night dives (and that is my only complaint of the week) -one on a wreck (saw an enourmous green moray out in the open around the wreck)and one along one of the small 'islands' that was a combo patch reef and wall dive. Most of our profiles were 70-80 feet with 45-60 min (depending on your air consumption and if your are using nitrox or air). If your buddy was an air hog on the dive it's not a problem - they just deploy their surface marker bouy, do their safety stop and then the dive tender picks them up. At the end of the dive time the DM deploys a surface marker bouy and everybody does their safety stop and then surface somewhat together around the marker bouy and the dive tender is there to pick you up. At the end of every dive you board the main ship fromt he tender, had a hot fresh water shower on the dive deck and then you were handed a hot towel and given a brief neck and shoulder rub down and given a hot out of the oven snack!
I did 22 dives for the week and I sat out 2 due to battling a bit of congestion one day. We were always the only ones at a dive site - no compay except the occasional sail boat/yacht. We did our tranists at night after all the diving was done.A few people had luggage issues (airlines) and the crew was great at keeping on top of the airlines and getting the luggage out to the ship a few days later via an inter-island ferry. So if you do this trip i would recommend coming in the day before and minimize the number of flight connections in getting to grenada. You will end up having a day to burn in grenada before you can board the ship (they board at 5pm) or you can do a morning boat dive with Aquanauts in Grenada (like i did!) to do an equipment ckeck out while waiting to get on the ship.
So, overall a great week of diving with a really fun and experienced crew. I would recommend the charter if you are interested in something a bit off the beaten path but not able to travel to really remote destinations in the south pacific.
