Oh, after the sharks we'd like reefs, sea grass beds, mangroves, muck, whatever. We love diving reefs, but would like to experience new environments, too, as long as there's cool sea life to see.
We do have our AOW and Nitrox certs. Deeper isn't a problem, but we prefer not to do much below about 85-90'.
PC, PM me if you like and have questions.
Potato cod, you have probably gathered that your entire wishlist is probably not possible to find in one place. But if Sharks are your main thing, you have to come here! Sometimes you can count 20+ Sandtigers on one wreck. On my last dive, there was TONS of current and not great vis. A couple of guys were working their cameras and couldn't find the sharks. My dive buddy and I went with intuition about where we would go if there was a lot of current. So we went to the starboard side, still didn't see them. Then we went down 20 feet or so and voila! There were tons of them, down on the sand rather than swimming around the boat as they normally do. They were all facing into the current and just chilling. You will need to be comfortable going from 90-120 or so to fully appreciate the wrecks and wildlife here.
Oooohhh, North Carolina sounds good, but my husband would absolutely flip for the hammerheads!
Not so many hammerheads, just occasionally. I think a previous poster mentioned other types we see here on occasion.
So what's the best time to do this, I would be interested. I like wearing a 3mm suit. Is there a best time of year for calmer waters along with the warm water? How warm is warm, 75F? Are there certain ops that you use that you would recommend? Are there day boats only? About how long is the long ride out, two hours? Do the ops all prefer nitrox certification as I am also nitrox certified? Is there ample room for camera gear on the boats?.......I have a lot of questions.
These comments are specific to diving out of Morehead, conditions are very different north of Cape Lookout.
I like Discovery (they run boats with approximately 16 divers as well as one six pack), Olympus (although their boats are too big for me, too many divers on one wreck), Diver down (not the swankiest boat, but super crew) and this summer I will be diving some with Tortuga which is a six pack (heard GREAT things, just haven't had a chance to go out with him yet).
The dive sites are generally 1.5-2 hours offshore or more if you are after something further out. But that isn't a bad thing. The Gulf stream runs out there keeping the water nice and warm. Some people dive wet almost year round (April-November) because of it. But if you are in a 3mm, I'd recommend June-Early October. The ops don't care if you use nitrox or not, but they do care if you have some deep diving experience and/or some sort of advanced certification. Don't know about camera gear, I'd ask. As for predicting the weather, good luck with that. You simply can't. That is why I recommend to people that they plan 4-5 days knowing that they might get 2 days of diving. I'd ask Tortuga James here what he thinks about time of year. He is a captain and knows better than I do if there is a "calm" season. This past spring seemed pretty rough, lots of blown out dives. The ocean here can look like glass one day and have crazy waves the next.
