Got back from the cruise last week. It was wonderful and we all had a great time.
A couple of weeks prior to our visit I had arranged with Blue Island Divers to meet us in St. Thomas. Since we only had one day down there, I wanted to squeeze in as many dives as possible and the owner, Aitch, agreed to let us do three dives for an additional $45 per person (normal outing is $80 for a 2-tank trip). We agreed on 3 specific reef dives since I had no interest in doing any wrecks.
The boat and crew met us as scheduled at the docks right on time. So far so good. Unfortunately, they were not informed of our agreement with Aitch, and they were only prepared to do 2 dives with us. In addition, they said the 3 that we had arranged with Aitch were impossible to do in a single outing since the sites were too far apart. The two they had planned were one of the reef dives I requested and a wreck dive that was VERY low on my list. The good news was that there was only one other diver on the boat besides my son and me.
In spite of the disappointing start (and poor coordination by BID), the two dives we did were really fun. We only went down to about 45 feet, but were able to stay down for about an hour each dive. The reef was beautiful (T Table) and the wrecks (navy barges) were also pretty cool with a different assortment of sea life. My son even had an encounter with a barracuda that swam to within 3 feet of his face, showed its teeth, then swam off. I missed the whole scene since I was 5 feet below him with my camera looking for cool stuff on the bottom :bonk: He got scared, but it didn't phase him and at least he has a cool story to tell.
So, all in all, the dives, which were our first warm water dives, were great. The sites were nice and we saw some cool sea life. We used our own equipment so I can't comment on the stuff BID might provide. BID met us as scheduled, and the crew were nice, but BID could have done much better by providing what we had actually agreed to in advance.
As soon as I scan some photos, I'll post them up on the photo board.
cheers,
Michael