Caribbean Explorer II Trip Report (May 1 to May 9, 2009)

Caribbean Explorer II Trip Report (May 1 to May 9, 2009)
Our dive shop, Underwater Playground, Edgewood, MD chartered the Caribbean Explorer the week of May 1 to May 9, 2009. As a disclaimer, I have done 4 trips on the Blackbeard's sailboats, 1 trip on the Cat Ppalu (also owned by Blackbeard's and one trip on the Nekton Pilot. This was mine and our groups first time on the Caribbean Explorer (CEXII), and we were looking forward to a good week of diving. We decided to fly in a day early to avoid any problems with late flights and took the 6am flight out of Baltimore, MD to Miami with connection to Georgetown, Bahamas on the island of Great Exuma. Our flights went well with the only problem being a 1 hour flight delay in Miami. The connecting flight is aboard an American Eagle turboprop. Even with 2 dive bags each, our entire luggage made it on the flight with us, which we learned was a sometimes unusual occurrence. Luckily for us everything made it with us. We stayed at the Peace and Plenty Inn on Great Exuma for Friday night. The P&P has an onsite restaurant with Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. We decided to experience some real Bahamian life and walked about 1 mile north along the main road to the island restaurants. We had a good time in one of local bars and the people were very friendly. Upon returning to the P&P about 9:30 we found that they have a DJ and dancing on Friday nights, Even though the dance floor and DJ were right outside my balcony, we were so tired after having gotten up at 2am that morning, that I went right to sleep even with a concert going on outside my window. It ended about midnight and was very quite thereafter. We spent the next day relaxing around the pool, and eating. The P&P was very accommodating and welcomed us staying and using the pool during the day, even leaving one room for us to use, even though checkout time is 11am. Dave the captain from the CEXII had come to the local bar Friday night and met with us and answered a few questions. Dave was very friendly and helpful along with his whole crew the next day. Since we had 18 people we arranged for a taxi to transport all our bags from the P&P to the dock on Saturday afternoon while we all strolled down past the straw market and grocery store to the docks. It's less than a 10 minute stroll. On arrival we were met by the crew who showed us our cabins, got us assigned to our spots on the dive deck and helped everyone get sorted out. Compared to the Blackbeard's sailboats, the rooms on the CEXII are like comparing the Hilton to the Super8. The rooms all have in-room heads and showers which is luxury compared to the shared manual pump heads on Blackbeard's. Don't get me wrong, I like the Blackbeard's diving and am going back on them in June, but the accommodations here are much better. After getting all settled in dinner was at 5:30 pm. Steak, baked potatoes, steamed vegetables, salad, fresh baked rolls and fresh fruit set the bar pretty high for Jane (the cook) for the rest of the week. I'll let you know how she does later on. Saturday night was spent at the dock with a departure time set for 4am to head to Long Island for our first dive. Since I am writing this trip report while on the boat, I'll try and write a daily report each day to cover that day's activity. The crew consists of Captain Dave, Engineer Ken, Cook Jane and Dive deck crew Austin, Curtis and Demi. The crew are various nationalities and have been with the vessel for varying amounts of time. Captain Dave is the longest with just over a year in command. Nitrox is available on-board for $150 a week, or $10 a fill. Their usual mix is 32% but several of our divers requested a leaner mix and they accommodated us by reducing the mix to 28%, making the max depth for both Air and Nitrox divers 130 ft. The NITROX system is a membrane system banked so everyone has to use the same mix. Captain Dave was pretty confident of good weather and we were looking forward to some good wall diving. Of the 6 crew members 5 were dive instructors. 1 member of our group was doing her Open Water certification dives with me and 3 were doing their Advanced Open Water certifications with me. The dive boat's only request was that we provide them with a copy of our shop insurance policy listing me as an instructor and the CEXII as an additional insured. We had already taken care of that before arriving so we were good to go. Two of our group decided to take the SDI Solo Diver course from an on-board instructor during the week. That's enough for tonight.

Sunday May 3, 2009. Overnight we traveled to Long Island to start our diving. 5 dives were on tap for today. The day started with eggs to order by Jane and 1st dive briefing at 8am. The dives today were all off Long Island starting with the first 2 at a site called Hogs Cay Reef, then the first afternoon dive was at Shark Reef. This is an old shark feeding site and the sharks still associate boats & divers with feeding time. We had 6 to 8 reef sharks in the area during the entire dive. This was a great dive. The second afternoon dive and the night dive were on Joe’s Reef, an easy to navigate large flat coral head surrounded by sand. Easy to stay near the boat at night but large enough not to have everyone on top of each other, The hot shower on the dive deck and the warm towel and hot chocolate on the dive deck at the end of the dive really helped warm everyone up. Water temp was a consistent 77 today on all the sites with Air Temp in the 80’s and mostly sunny all day. After the night dive tonight, the Capt decided the next 2 days weather was forecast to be perfect so we’re going down to San Salvador Island to dive with the Hammerheads on the wall. That’s all for tonight.

Monday, May 4, 2009. Welcome to San Salvador. We motored overnight to San Salvador Island arriving about 3 am. Breakfast was omelets made to order. 1st Dive of the Day was a site called Sandy Cliff, a wall starting in 35 feet dropping to a Sandy bottom at 130+ and then dropping off again into the blue. Visibility was over 100 feet. Highlight of the 2 morning dives was a turtle that dropped thru our group going down. Second dive was the same site. After Lunch (Steamed Shrimp, fettuccine with marinara or alfredo sauce we moved to a site called Double Caves. The current was ripping on this dive. Almost everyone was worn out after 20-25 minutes fighting the current and called it. We moved back to the south end for our 2nd dive and the night dive on Sea Garden. A wall starting in 30 feet with no visible bottom. Absolutely no current here. Some really nice deep swim thrus along the wall, some coming out at 130 and deeper so watching your gauge/computer was important. Highlight of the night dive was the octopus out hunting. Some people got really nice pictures. So far no hammerheads, just a couple of reef sharks. Captain Dave says maybe tomorrow. Dinner was pork loin, roasted sweet potatoes and pineapple upside down cake with ice cream. Enough for tonight.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009 – San Salvador. 5 dives again today, starting with North Pole Cave, then 2 at Great Cut and 2 to finish the day at Hole in the Wall. Saw a hammerhead shark at Great Cut at the beginning of the day, a great start. All three sites are wall dives with the top of the wall around 35-45 feet and dropping off to no-where. Lots of life on the walls and lots of crevices and a few swim thrus. It’s easy to drop deeper than you think, so again checking your depth gauge/computer is important. Meals today started with eggs to order with bacon, Lunch was greek salad, lamb on pita bread and fixings’ along with tomato soup. Dinner was grilled mahi-mahi, rice, salad and dessert was carrot cake. After the night dive hot chocolate was waiting on the dive deck with kahlua & whisky if you wanted to strengthen it a little.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009 – Last day at San Salvador. Our day started out with perfect weather again, mid 70’s warming to 80 during the day and mostly sunny all day. 5 dives again scheduled, the morning ones at a site called the Humps. This site is just off shore from the Riding Rock Inn and the marina. A low finger coral area leading to the wall. Lunch was Mexican day with tacos, burritos, beans and rice with all the fixings to make them how you want them. The afternoon dive started on Pyramid and then moved to Telephone Pole where we also did the night dive. Dinner was BBQ night with bar-b-que ribs, chicken, and corn on the cob, corn bread and salad. Stick a fork in me I’m done. Just about everyone decided to hold desert until after the night dive. Apple pie with vanilla ice cream. The night dive was awesome, with the dorado coming out to hunt the smaller fish using our lights. A reef shark swam by but left after we spotted him in our lights. We’re on our way to Conception Island tonight to do our last full day of diving. Several of our group talked the captain into doing a dawn dive in the morning so wake up for those fools is 5:30 with a 6am splash time. I will not be among them. The 8:30 dive is close enough to dawn for me.

Thursday, May 7, 2009 – Welcome to Conception Island. 5 more dives on the schedule for today. We actually had 10 of 18 people role out at 5:30 for the dawn dive. I was not one of them. The morning dives were on a site called Missing Link and Grouper Ledge. Both wall dives again with the top of the wall in 50 feet. The first afternoon dive was also on Grouper Ledge. The walls here are a little more sloped than San Salvador, but still dramatic. The second afternoon dive and the night dive was at Chutes and Ladders, also a wall dive with a high profile top reef. On this dive, a new diver that I certified earlier in the trip got her high light of the trip. A hawksbill turtle crossed the reef right thru our group and seemed in no hurry swimming with us for a few minutes. She was joyous. We also found a juvenile spotted drum dancing around a hole in the top of the reef. We stayed on the mooring overnight. Oh yeah supper was Thanksgiving with roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and pumpkin pie for dessert. Jane has cooked up a feast every meal during the trip and we’ve all gained weight this week. Our final 2 dives are tomorrow morning, back at Long Island.

Friday, May 08, 2009 – Return to Long Island. 2 dives to do this morning to finish the week off. The first is on the Comber Bach wreck sunk a few years ago as an artificial reef. A 100’ long inter-island freighter with a 25’ sailboat sunk nearby. Plenty of growth on it and lots of fish in the area including Atlantic spade fish. Our last dive of the trip was a return to shark reef. A fantastic finish to our trip. At least 4 reef sharks swam around and thru our group repeatedly allowing some great photos and video. Lots of other fish, barracuda and rock beauty’s along with other assorted creatures. My longest dive of the trip 60 minutes. We’re motoring back to Georgetown this afternoon after rinsing all our gear, and hanging it to dry in the warm sunshine along the deck rails and on the top deck. Spending the night on the boat and then we fly home tomorrow. Dinner tonight will be ashore at St. Francis restaurant. The crews one night off is Fridays, and then it’s back to work for them Saturday, getting us off by 9am, restocking and turning the boat around before the next batch of guests come aboard at 3pm.

Overall impressions of everyone on the trip was that it was a very enjoyable week. We did 27 or 28 dives depending on if you did the dawn dive, mostly all walls with good coral growth ranging in depths from 35 feet to 130 and beyond. The crew was very helpful and friendly, trying to accommodate all our requests. They remixed their normal 32% NITROX down to 28% at our request and all week it was within 1% of the 28. They were helpful in getting us off the boat, lowering cameras and helping get everyone back on board. They made sure they accounted for everyone, logging max depths and air pressure. Ken was on top of things keeping everything running. There were no problems with any of the mechanical gear that prevented any of the dives. On the night dives, hot shower on the dive deck and warm towels really made the night. We had great weather for the entire week. Captain Dave said the last 3 weeks they had had winds of 30 mph most days, with up to 6-8 foot seas. We lucked out, with a gentle breeze most days, flat seas with a very lite chop and 1-2 foot swells sometimes. It rained for 5 minutes one evening and that was it. Some days it just plain got hot on the upper sun deck, but you could always go to your room and take a nap. The A/C was good, keeping the cabins and below decks area cool and dry. Water temps ran from 77-78 off Long Island to 78-80 off San Salvador Island.
Our group had one person doing their open water certification dives and she ended the week with 20 dives including 4 night dives, and 2 deeper than 60 feet. We also had 3 people complete their Advanced Open Water Diver certifications on the trip and several people hit milestones, including 5 who hit 50 dives, one with 150 dives and one with 450 dives. I personally hit my 1,200 dive on the trip. We had three instructors in our group, 2 divecons and a divecon in training. The rest were all in between in terms of experience. 2 of our group took the SDI Solo diver course from one of the on-board crew members/instructors. We didn’t have any serious problems on the boat, and even so Capt. Dave and his crew seemed ready to deal with any problems. Compared with the Blackbeard’s sailboats, the Caribbean Explorer II is definitely a step up in the comfort and luxury department. The food was more varied, but considering the CEXII’s kitchen is bigger than the main salon of the Blackbeard’s sailboat, it’s not surprising. The quality of the food on Blackbeard’s is good, just a little plainer. As far as deck space and dive deck room, the CEXII has both Blackbeard’s and the Nekton’s beat. Nekton has a larger indoor common area than the CEXII and a much larger crew, 10-12 compared to 6 on the CEXII. I’ve enjoyed all three and am doing a Blackbeard’s in 3 weeks and am back on Nekton Rorqual the first week of August. Since each does different itineraries, sites and locations, I look for where I want to try diving next. I really like the Bahamas for the diving, but am going to go to St. Croix on the Nekton for something a little different.
I’ll be posting some photos as soon as I get some from the other people, as I was shooting video all week, except when teaching. Let’s go diving!.

sounds awesome! Can't wait to see photos and videos!!!

Thanks Steve! I am so excited after reading your trip report, we just booked this boat for June!!!! They have a money back policy for hammerhead sightings right?