Alaska Liveaboard

I just returned to Anchorage from a 10-day trip from Juneau to Vancouver onboard the liveaboard Nautilus Explorer. I found it a great way to dive, tour, and eat my way down the inside passage. The diving is great, mostly walls, pinnacles, and wrecks, with all kinds of marine mammals, including a rather vigorous encounter with Stellers sea lions. Activities on this trip were balanced between diving and shore tours due to a number of non-divers (spouses) on board. The crew was absolutely phenomenal and attendant to every need. It also had a bottomless cookie jar, a requirement on any live aboard dive boat . all kidding aside, this was a great way to southeeast and discover the great diving that is present in this state.

I will be posting trip vignettes from time to time on my blog.

One high point of the trip was the presence of Zale Perry of Sea Hunt and diving fame. She is a very energetic and gracious lady.

Do you have contact info for them or a website? id be real intrested if I can get more info.
Myles

Hi There.

My wife and I are considering a ten day trip on the Nautilus Explorer from Vancouver to Juneau.

Our only concern is that WE ARE BOTH NON-DIVERS!!! It seems to be an excellent ship, and everyone has great things to say about the trip, but the fact that we do not dive makes us a bit wary.

It would be really appreciated if I were to receive your views.

Regards,

Paul Farrugia

Paulfarrugia@waldonet.net.mt

There are a ton of boats that do that type of run the are intended for non-divers. The Nautilus is a dive boat. The primary goal each day is to get divers diving. Why would you want to do the Nautilus when you could go on a boat that would be more geared toward things you would want to do?

I agree with akscubainst. It has nothing to do with the boat or the crew, just what the primary activity is on the trip. Unless Nautilus is billing your trip as a special trip that accomodates non-divers, I think you would be disappointed. Yes, there are shore excursions and they do have a naturalist on board for these types of shoreside trips, but they are secondary, something to break up the diving. The trip that I was on had a fair number of non-divers aboard, the spouses of the divers, and many knew each other. They understood this was primarily a diving trip and the crew did try to make the trip as pleasant as possible and it seemed to work for the non-divers. In fact, several of the non-diving spouse remarked it was nice to finally be able to take a cruise with their diving spouse. Many enjoyed the tranquility and cameraderie of the group. As non-divers, not only would you not be doing most of the primary activities you may not know what is going on with the group's main activity. So unless you really like being around divers, know other members of the cruise, or you just want a leisurely cruise on a great boat up the passage that does not go into most of the tourist spots but goes into some off the beaten path places instead, you might not like it. The boat is great and they will go out of their way to make sure you are satisfied.

As a side note, unfortunately, I see from their schedule that they are not coming to Alaska after 2009. Not quite sure of the reason. That will be our loss.

Hmmmm, I'll have to contact them again. Last time I did, a couple years ago, they cautioned me they were not primarily a dive boat. Instead they said they were an excursion boat that inculded diving with maybe a couple dives a day on average.

Course at that time they spent most of their time in the Inland Waterway.

Thanks for your very valuable replies.

The impression I got from contacting the vessel is the same as ArcticDiver.

In fact, I posted the question as I was not totally convinced, but it was explained to us that it would not be a trip totallu devoted to diving. From your replies, it is evident that it is a totally diving trip. And yes, although extremely well travelled and used to being with people we do not know, we are totally uninterested in diving.

Any further comments would be most appreciated.

Paul Farrugia

Guys, The NE is a Dive boat first and an sightseeing play around boat 2nd. The NE is probably the best liveaboard "Dive boat" on the west coast and down to Cabo.

I would imagine that when they are in SE AK, they do spend quite a bit of time on "excursions" just because you get 3-4 dives a day in 18 hours of daylight what else do you do?

Make no mistake though, the priority on the NE is diving. Not too many excursion boats have a 30' Dive boat that winches inside the mother ship.

Dave

I think you have it right. This is a dive boat that does other wonderful things when people are not out diving. It is a dive boat that does other things very well. On my trip, some of the excursions took place during the dives. At other times, there were no dives scheduled and all who wanted to could go ashore. There was so diving in the ice field, but those willing to go in got to play in the floes. We did a fair amount of whale watching, kayaks were available for our use, and so on. People went fishing, flight seeing, beach walks, etc. But, this was primarily a diving trip and the behavior of those on board was typical of a diving boat, attend briefings, dive during the day, prep cameras in between dives, and at night, watched diving videos, looked at the underwater images people had done, etc. This is a cruise ship that is the best dive boat on the west coast that does other things during the trip equally as well. Sometimes there are no dives, but diving is the primary activity.