Hi JC.
One of the good things about diving the Dawnlight is you can customize your own trip. Do some research into the many sites available and choose the trip you want. I had the chance to dive from the Dawnlight this past Labour day long weekend (extended long weekend). My LDS and dive buddies have been raving about the "Northwind trip" for the past two years so this year I signed up. The Northwind wreck is more of a technical dive trip and I am not sure as to the type of diving you want to do so I wont talk too much about the wreck here. I will say that the Northwind is now one of my favourite wrecks to dive. Our trip focused on diving the Northwind exclusively. We spent several days moored over the wreck site. On our return trip and our last dive we stopped off at an island off of Tobermory and dove a site known as "Dufferin Wall. This wall drops off to over 300 feet. The best part of this trip was the diving.....as it should be!
Now, as for the Dawnlight. The tug is clean, cozy, and had adequate room for your personal gear..ie clothes and toiletries. We didnt have a full boat so the few empty berths became luggage compartments. There was plenty of room for gear even for all of our doubles and deco bottles. Theres plenty of room to gear up and entry and exits were simple. There are lines strung above the gear up area to hang your wet/dry suits. Air fills are easily done for you and o2 and Nitrox is available. So far everything sounds great. There were a few negatives. The food was ok. Not great but ok. There is a new cook on board and the cuisine was not as good as previous trips guests reported. There were a few side dishes that almost nobody ate. But hey...were there for the diving. Right!? Also , a few of the guests had a problem with Rays attitude (the captain). At times it felt like we were un-invited, troublesome guests on HIS boat. Who knows, maybe he was having a bad day or something. Im hoping this is not how he is all the time. Paying customers like to feel like welcome customers and at times some of us didn't.
Overall though the trip was a great DIVING experience. Accomodations were good and the diving was excellent. Would I do it again??? Most definately. I think next Labour day long weekend.
Cheers
