MikeJacobs
Guest
A shore dive and a boat dive.
This is not an ad... I like *all* the Fort Lauderdale area dive operators (except one, who has clearly become jaded over the years, and I don't dislike him - I just feel sorry for him).
But we dove with the American Dream II, a new boat out of Pier Sixty-Six in Ft. Lauderdale, and had a great experience. Todd & Chris are terrific hosts and their boat is nice and stable - of the size I'm used to after many years of California dives.
It's a big boat, and naturally we'd call it a 'cattle boat.' I admit I expected the worst, but you'd have to see how things were organized and how smoothly they ran to understand my change of heart.
There were a couple of large classes on board. Our hosts made sure that we went down first on the Tracy (wreck) and changed my reel out on the flag before dropping us in a "private" spot for the reef dive. We only saw two other divers on the reef... how they accomplished that I have no clue.
So, they were extremely sensitive to the needs of both classes *and* certified divers, and successfully managed us both.
Part of the credit for the GREAT trip goes to the instructor leading the largest class... she probably had a dozen students and she herded them expertly - they took up the space of much fewer, especially on the wreck on the way back up the line.
I've seen a lot of classes on boat dives over my 20 years blowing bubbles, and I've never seen anything run so well.
So, what did you do this weekend?
This is not an ad... I like *all* the Fort Lauderdale area dive operators (except one, who has clearly become jaded over the years, and I don't dislike him - I just feel sorry for him).
But we dove with the American Dream II, a new boat out of Pier Sixty-Six in Ft. Lauderdale, and had a great experience. Todd & Chris are terrific hosts and their boat is nice and stable - of the size I'm used to after many years of California dives.
It's a big boat, and naturally we'd call it a 'cattle boat.' I admit I expected the worst, but you'd have to see how things were organized and how smoothly they ran to understand my change of heart.
There were a couple of large classes on board. Our hosts made sure that we went down first on the Tracy (wreck) and changed my reel out on the flag before dropping us in a "private" spot for the reef dive. We only saw two other divers on the reef... how they accomplished that I have no clue.
So, they were extremely sensitive to the needs of both classes *and* certified divers, and successfully managed us both.
Part of the credit for the GREAT trip goes to the instructor leading the largest class... she probably had a dozen students and she herded them expertly - they took up the space of much fewer, especially on the wreck on the way back up the line.
I've seen a lot of classes on boat dives over my 20 years blowing bubbles, and I've never seen anything run so well.
So, what did you do this weekend?