looking for longer duration liveaboard....

[kvm]

Does anyone know who I can talk to or where I can look for longer duration liveaboards? I'm talking like a month or more. Location can be anywhere in the world.

 

[diversteve]

Some of the Paul Gauguin cruises in the South Pacific run about 2 weeks. But more like a small cruise line with on-board good diving than a liveaboard in the sense most of us are used to. They're also pretty upscale and priced accordingly. Although they do include air from LAX if you're here in the states. http://www.pgcruises.com/

I doubt you'll find a smaller vessel that can support a group of divers for a month w/o returning to port for replenishment of fuel and supplies.

 

[Quero]

I have not heard of liveaboards with such a long single-trip duration. However, at certain times of year it may be possible to link three shorter (10-days or so) trips together to make one longer trip. For example if you were on a boat doing its last sailing of a Raja Ampat season and stayed aboard for the trip when the boat moves to Komodo, followed by a Komodo trip, you might make it close to a month.

 

[diversteve]

Similar to what Quero posted, Explorer moves their boat between Exuma and Turks/Caicos the first part of June - departing Exuma - arriving in Provo. It would only be two 1 week trips back to back. Their normal T/C trips are to West Caicos and French Cay but they also do another week going to Salt Cay, Grand Turk and South Caicos so maybe you could combine all three?

Also Rocio Del Mar moves between the Socorros and the Midriff islands in the Sea of Cortez sometime in spring. It's a pretty popular boat so may be all sold out though. I believe the Socorros would be 10 days - IDK about the Midriff trip.

 

[hilld]

I stayed on a liveaboard many years ago on the Great Barrier Reef. The mothership was actually permanently out at the reef and they had daily runs from one of their smaller boats taking back and bringing new guests to Cairs (about 60 miles way). The daily dive trips were either directly next to the mothership or they would run their skiffs a few miles out. The mothership would get moved daily to a new location. With this setup you could stay as long as you wanted as there was not particular schedule or port of call they had to make.

I can't remember the name of the operation or boat, that was about 15 years ago.

 

[Quero]

We have those here in Thailand, too, and I know of one in Komodo as well. However, they don't cover much territory due to the need to be within an hour or two speedboat journey from the home port. This means that there's a lot of repetition of dive sites over an extended period, and not much change in venue.

 

[Dora the Explorer]

We have what we call "Explore Baja" Trips, this are our relocation trips. Twice a year we travel, dive, explore and more for 12 days, our next one is June 1-12, 2012. We will depart from San Jose del Cabo and travel along the baja in the Sea of Cortez, arriving 12 days later in Puerto Penasco. In late October we will do it again, after we finish our season at the Northern Sea of Cortes, but this time we leave from Puerto Penasco and arrive 12 days later in San Jose del Cabo,3 days later we travel to the Socorro Islands to start our season. You might want to do all 3 trips?

Let us know if you are interested. We would be glad to have you onboard Rocio del Mar!!!

 

[donhealy]

One month is a real long time on a live aboard. T&C II could string together a month if you took the repositioning cruise twice. One week at T&C, next week on trip up to Exuma; there one week and then back down to T&C. Its a great boat and great crew. The boat is big enough that you wouldn't feel cramped.

 

[DennisS]

I'll agree that a month at sea is a long time, people start to get antsy. I would break it up into at least two, two week trips with a shore break. Three 10 day trips with a couple of days on shore in between would be my choice.

 

[robint]

yeah, I could do 2 weeks on a boat with the same crew, but no longer. I would mix it up and do land-based to the same area for a couple of weeks.
Belize Aggressor for 2 weeks then a week of exploring the Mayan ruins and caves on the mainland would be my dream trip in the Caribbean.
or
Utila Aggressor for a week, a week on Utila land-based diving, then a week on Roatan at CCV (almost like a liveaboard with 5 dives a day), then a 3-4 day trip to mainland to explore Mayan ruins. That would take a nice month trip and not hitting the same dive spots too many times.
or
Kona Aggressor for 2 weeks, spend 3-4 days on Kona hiking the Volcanos Nat'l park and waterfalls, then island hop over to Maui for a week or two land-based diving. Another full month of adventure.

robin