Lord willing & providing, my planning runs like this. I aim for 2 dive trips per year, one (perhaps solo) for heavy diving (e.g.: Bonaire), and one 'scuba trip disguised as a family vacation' (as my wife puts it), plus a couple of dives at the local quarry in southwestern KY, so I tend to come out around 35 dives/year maybe? Much as I love Bonaire, I've been 8 times, and I hope to expand my dive experience into some new places & types of diving. Need to keep costs down decently & no plane trip over 4 hours, same day arrival, 7 day trips. Water over 75 degrees so I don't need a wetsuit.
1.) 1st Live-aboard - aiming for Sun Dancer 2 in Belize. I love general Caribbean diving. Been slow to commit to being trapped on a boat for a week, probably solo, but want to try the live-aboard experience and the boat & destination are well-rated, plus I've never dove Belize. Hope to bang out a lot of dives.
2.) Morehead, NC. Basically all wreck diving, rather deep, with lengthy boat rides in the Atlantic. No, I'm not a history buff. Like many of you, I like diving with sharks. 'Real' sharks with the classic shark look & preferably gnarly looking teeth, but dangerous looking rather than apt to actually be dangerous (of course, sizable wild animals and all…
. Nurse sharks look kind of like catfish, Caribbean reef sharks are neat but unless fed tend to keep some distance & those I've seen aren't quite that big, and seeing them is really hit or miss. Ain't quite ready for shark feed dives with bulls & maybe tigers coming around.
Just as when I hit Jupiter, Fl last September during the Goliath grouper aggregation, I figure if you've got an itch to scratch diving, scratch that sucker hard. Don't mess around; get it out of your system. In the U.S. where sharks are concerned, I'm looking at 2 main opportunities - Jupiter, Fl during the lemon shark migration, or North Carolina wrecks with sand tiger sharks (which if I understand correctly congregate more heavily to breed in winter, but some should be available in summer when the water's warm like I like). I've already been to Jupiter, and I've seen enough sand tigers at public aquariums to know they've 'got the look' and are about the right size. Seems like they hang out & may let people fairly close?
So, late spring Sun Dancer 2 & late summer Morehead, NC is the tentative plan. Hope wife, toddler daughter & mother-in-law can find some non-diving fun in Morehead.
Richard.