Blackbeard Trip Report October 16-23

[charlesml3]

Gang,

Just got back from a week aboard one of the Blackbeard cruise ships. We did reefs/wrecks near Grand Bahama and Bimini. If you're only interested in the diving, skip down to the "Diving" section below. If you've never been on a trip with Blackbeard there is info here on that.

So let's get started.... The ship is about 65 feet long and there were 17 divers and 5 crew. Doing the math, that means tight quarters. There is little privacy on the ship. You constantly either find yourself in someone's way or you're in their way. If you are prone to seasickness.... this is a pretty small boat. We sailed back from Bimini to Grand Bahama in 5-7 foot seas (not my estimate, I asked the skipper.) It took 10 hours to make that trip. I was fine but it was a long day with nothing to do but hold onto something. Two of the crew got seasick and one passenger.

There is storage out on deck for all of your dive gear but that's it. Nothing in the cabins. All of your clothes, toothbrush stuff is on your bunk. You kind of end up sleeping with all of that crammed in the corners. That didn't really bother me but I pack really light. Even with that, there were clothes I didn't need. The operative phrase for a Blackbeard cruise is "Camping at sea."

The food was plentiful and surprisingly good. The cook did a fabulous job and nobody could ask any more of her. She really stepped up and did a great job.

The rest of the crew was a bit mixed. Very young. Not so experienced. They knew how to handle the boat but there was a clear lack of leadership. It seemed like the skipper had some great plans and procedures in his head but didn't clearly communicate them to the crew. They seemed lost at times.

The Diving: This is probably what you're most interested in reading anyway. The diving was poor to fair. Sorry, but that's how I saw it. I made 17 dives during the week. 4 of them were Good. 5 of them were "Why bother?" The rest were somewhere in the middle. Not that this is any fault of Blackbeard. The fault lies with The Bahama's lack of a protected marine park. There is none and everything is overfished. Any lobster over 6 inches is fair game to be speared and live conchs are virtually non-existent. No conchs = no spotted eagle rays. The result is reefs that lack life and vibrance. There wasn't much color. I looked all week and saw a total of two anemone. One Flamingo Tongue. Two file fish. Compared to Cozumel, Belize, and Roatan, the diving just wasn't there. There is a large dive op in Grand Bahama that has sunk several ships as artificial reefs and some of those are decent. The Sea Star was a good dive.

We did see quite a few gray reef sharks, especially when we were near the "Shark Feed" sites. They hear the boat and come looking for food. That was pretty cool.

Overall, the Blackbeard cruises are cheap, but that's about the height of it. For my money, I'll put the $800 towards a trip to Coz or Bonaire. I only have so much time and money for dive vacations and having 1/3 of the dives during a week be ones where I was wondering why I even got in the water.... Just not where I need it to be.

I'll probably take a beating here for this but I call it how I see it. Even if the ship had been huge, comfortable and wonderful it wouldn't make up for the lackluster diving. That is why I'm there after all.

I don't have my log book with me here but if you want to know which sites we dove, please reply here and I'll post them.

-Charles

[shawrg]

Thanks for your trip report charles. I have not been on a Blackbeard cruise boat, but they usually gets my attention because of the low price. However, lackluster diving is a deal breaker for me. There will be no beating from me as I appreciate it when people call it like they see it!

[robint]

I hope you post this trip report down on the Liveaboard Forum as there are so many questions, especially lately, about Blackbeards.

As far as the fishlife goes, I think it is that area of the Bahamas that seems to be the most barren. You can partially blame the lionfish for that. The Nekton trips we have done, Medio and Cay Sal, are farther south to north side of Cuba and the fishlife there seemed to be fine. BUT we didn't see lionfish either. A friend did the Cay Sal trip this summer and said they did see lionfish, so that means they are moving southward through the area and probably wiping out the juvir fish as they go.

robin

[charlesml3]

Very possible that it's the Lionfish. We did see quite a few, but they weren't all that plentiful. Maybe 2 on each dive and a couple of the divers in our group were pretty good at spearing them.

The lack of big groupers was probably as much a problem as anything. The really big ones will eat anything, including Lion Fish. Unfortunately, fisherman have taken all of them.

The part of the trip I did enjoy was working as a kind of crewmember on deck. I know boats so they let me steer for quite a while and help with pulling sails. I'm one of those that likes to be doing something most of the time so that was cool.

Had the diving been any better I'd be able to recommend it but it is what it is. If the Bahamas doesn't start taking their dive industry serious they'll find themselves in the same spot Jamaica is now. Dead, polluted reefs that nobody wants to see.

-Charles

[Tavi]

I just returned from Grand Bahama Island and 2 weeks of great diving!! I saw plenty of fish!! I don't think the Lionfish are as big of a problem as everyone seems to think!! Yes they are a little bigger each year, but their numbers don't seem to be increasing like they did at first.

We saw Sharks (even though they are being overfished, the local population of females has gone from 22 last year to 6 this year plus 1 nurse shark)
We saw rays and Eagle rays, and a few Large Grouper and Snapper, not to mention all of the other smaller fish. In a few spots If you wanted to see the reef or wreck you'd have to get the fish out of the way!! I guess I saw all the fish that you'all didn't!!

I think the diving is great!! and I saw 1 of Blackbeards ships several days (even though they are not supposed to be operating near land based dive opps), so I'm sure we were diving the same waters.

[deeper thoughts]

Thnx for the report.

[charlesml3]

I think the diving is great!!

Compared to where?

The reefs in Grand Bahama and Bimini are pale compared to Cozumel, Belize, and Roatan (especially the West End).

-Charles

[Sinbad the Diver]

I had a similar feeling about diving off Eleuthera. My other reef diving has been in Key Largo and in comparison I thought there was more types of life in the Bahamas, but much less of it. Where as in Key Largo there were large schools of fish everywhere, in the part of the Bahamas we dove there were lots of single fish.

[charlesml3]

Agreed. I dove Key Largo several years ago and although it was fine, it just wasn't all that great.

It seems like everywhere I go that has a protected marine park has far better diving.

-Charles

[Willar]

I found the diving with Blackbeard's to be very good and compared well to Cozumel. Their boats are generally divided by skill according to how you complete the trip questionaire. I wonder which boat and set of dive sites you were on as you don't mention the names of the sites you dove. I'm also wondering about which dives you skipped since you only did 17 dives. I did 24 dives when on Blackbeard's and most people I hear do 20+ dives.

Not disrespecting you, just asking for more details on your dives and sites, and which ones you skipped. Also, since I dove when they originated out of Miami rather than FPO the sites could have been different.

Thanks for the update. Respect!