13 replies to this topic

[dustbowl diver]

Well, tdtexas and I made it back from our journey to Nassau-barely thanks in part to the lovely weather in Dallas on Tuesday night (a 9 hour wait in Miami). We dove with Stuart Coves which clearly may have the monoply in Nassau. Large operation with 8 large vessels dedicated to diving, 1 for snorkelers, and 1 for underwater sub-craft. Most of the sites are within a 10-15 minute ride of shop. Here is an overview of the sites:

Sat-4/21/07
Pumpkin Patch-First dive of trip and burrr-water was in mid 70's. Decent wall dive. Saw a couple of reef sharks. Shop photographer got a nice shot of a scorpionfish
Bond Wrecks-Sight of 2 wrecks used in the James Bond movies, "Thunderball" and "Never Say Never Again" we had a photographer from Sportdiver along for an article running in December.
Shark Wall-We sat on the reef for 15 minutes waiting for the rest of the divers to get to site. Headed over to wall for a short stint before heading to a sand patch where they do the feeding dives. This was a short dive as they wanted to get us back for a quick interval and then back to same location for the feed. A unique experieince for a "touristy" dive. To be that up close and personal with the sharks was really cool. Keeps your hands against your chest, wouldn't want a shark thinking you are trying to feed it!!

Sun-4/22/07
Steel Forrest-Three wrecks within a short swim of one another. Not alot of marine life. We did see a turtle and a wray. DM reported seeing an Eagle Wray
Golden Caye-25ft dive in a circular reef with a sand path in the center. Lots of swell keep things a little cloudy, but there was some nice marine activity. Lots of yellowtail snapper and several nice parrotfish.
Sand Tunnel-Easily a favorite dive. A sand tunnel runs between two coral heads in about 50 feet of water. After a wait for some other divers, we made our way through to the edge of the wall and WOW!! It goes for 6300 plus feet!!! Nice just hanging along wall at 80 feet for a few minutes
Treasure Wreck-Sight of the Movie "Into the Blue" W/ Jessica Alba. Lots of Carribean reef sharks on this site. Nice tiger grouper and an eel made an appearance, but I just couldn't get a pic before he dashed under a beam from the hull of the ship, which is all that reamins! This was another favorite dive site

Mon-4/23/07
Sea Viking Wreck-An old fishing troller. We went over the wall for a few minutes, another WOW!! before we headed back to the wreck. Another diver pointed where a lionfish was hiding out. Zoomed to much on first pic I took, Tried again, but didn't quite get him all in the frame.
Ray of Hope, Bahama Mama wrecks-We were on part of this sight the day before, we saw a nice wray hiding in the sand.

Overall, I have been in areas with better reefs and marine life.

All in all-It was a dive trip and that beat working. Stuart Cove's has some great staff and amazing boat captains getting back into areas to tie off to. If I had a grip or two, they seemed to rush you through the dives in terms of bottom time as we surfaced on most of the deeper dives with well above 1000 PSI. Short surface intervals for seemingly short shallow dives. Once you go through the initial registration, they need better organization in the shop in getting repeat divers scheduled to their boats for the morning. Running 6 shuttles into shop, it got to be quite a cluster F!!

Nassau is a little pricey compared to some places I've been (7$ for a less than two mile cab ride for dinner one night) Kalick-local beer went for 4-6 bucks. We found a great fresh fruit daquiri bar acroos from our hotel, generous with the rum for $6.

If I were to go back, I would explore around Freeport, but that will be way down the line as there are too many other places to go beforehand. I have a few pics, will try to get them posted soon!!

DBD

[scubaski]

Dust Bowl Diver,
Water temp. mid 70 for your entire trip?
What did you use for termal protection??
I'm off to T & C, Provo on Saterday am and want to be warm for the week.
Thanks for your input and dive report,
Stan

[ScubaPunk]

Good trip report John, Thanks. What's with all these dive ops rushing divers through their dives? I say we all get together and make an industry wide complaint. They just want to get you back fast so they can get the next group out, and make more money. That's a bunch of BS. They should give each dive a minimum of 1 hour. Some people will be up in 1/2 that time, but others will use every bit of an hour and still have air left. They did the same thing to me and Sassy in Cozy last year. They made us come up when I had 1700 left in my tank. Spent way too much money for them to be cutting my dives in half.

[scubafanatic]

...thanks for the report, John! The latest issue of Undercurrents comfirms your experience at Sturart's Cove..... divers there report 30 min dives, which include safety stops......so I, of course, will never be diving with them...... I never patronize dive operators with deliberate time limits........ I value my vacation time/money too highly! It's not that I have great air consumption...... typically on a Coz trip, for example, I'll do 45 - 50 min dives on average...but it's the principle of the thing, I don't want to worry about someone timing me UW.

...about the Turks temps....... I've been twice in the last 2 yrs, in April 05 and May 06...... temps varied somewhat..... mid 70's was a good average...... I wore a full 7 mm suit with 2 mm hood/ gloves....and I'm glad I did..... I would have been unhappy with anything less, as we spent 5 hrs daily for a week at those temps.

...gotta go, leaving for the Flower Gardens this afternoon !

Karl

[mantarraya]

Which dive op in Coz? I had that happen in Coz myself, and although I liked the dive master a lot, he was super-paranoid about getting back to the dock on time so he wouldn't be yelled at, and hence, had us come up when we had lots of air. I don't blame him, but the management of the op. This was with Papa Hogs about 4 years ago. After that, I switched op and haven't had it happen again. Of course, now the owner of that op had sold out, so will try to use Jesus (formerly from the op that SD uses) in the future as he was good with SD, and seems to be good running his own op based on reports from Pocahontas and LatitudeAdjustment.

[scubaski]

...thanks for the report, John! The latest issue of Undercurrents comfirms your experience at Sturart's Cove..... divers there report 30 min dives, which include safety stops......so I, of course, will never be diving with them...... I never patronize dive operators with deliberate time limits........ I value my vacation time/money too highly! It's not that I have great air consumption...... typically on a Coz trip, for example, I'll do 45 - 50 min dives on average...but it's the principle of the thing, I don't want to worry about someone timing me UW.

...about the Turks temps....... I've been twice in the last 2 yrs, in April 05 and May 06...... temps varied somewhat..... mid 70's was a good average...... I wore a full 7 mm suit with 2 mm hood/ gloves....and I'm glad I did..... I would have been unhappy with anything less, as we spent 5 hrs daily for a week at those temps.

...gotta go, leaving for the Flower Gardens this afternoon !

Karl

Thanks for the detail on water temp. Ss

[dustbowl diver]

Dust Bowl Diver,
Water temp. mid 70 for your entire trip?
What did you use for termal protection??
I'm off to T & C, Provo on Saterday am and want to be warm for the week.
Thanks for your input and dive report,
Stan

SS,

The morning dives were the worst the first two days, water had to be 75ish. We were wearing 3/2 full wetsuits. My buddy put gloves on to help with seals at the wrist and reported that that made a difference for him. Afternnon dives weren't as bad as your were somewhat "acclamated". Monday, water was up a couple of degrees as I didn't feel like my ^@!!$ were in my chest cavity. My buddy said after our dives he was chilled and was having a hard time getting warm.

Sorry I am late getting this posted, I hope this helps you out!!

DBD

[scubaski]

Dust Bowl Diver,
Water temp. mid 70 for your entire trip?
What did you use for termal protection??
I'm off to T & C, Provo on Saterday am and want to be warm for the week.
Thanks for your input and dive report,
Stan

SS,

The morning dives were the worst the first two days, water had to be 75ish. We were wearing 3/2 full wetsuits. My buddy put gloves on to help with seals at the wrist and reported that that made a difference for him. Afternnon dives weren't as bad as your were somewhat "acclamated". Monday, water was up a couple of degrees as I didn't feel like my ^@!!$ were in my chest cavity. My buddy said after our dives he was chilled and was having a hard time getting warm.

Sorry I am late getting this posted, I hope this helps you out!!

DBD

Thank You,
I'll pack my 5mm

[dustbowl diver]

Yea!! I have one of my pictures uploaded succesfully in the Gallery!!

Thanks FG for the help!!!

[Cold_H2O]

Dusty ~ Sounds like a nice trip.

I hate it when I am forced to cut a dive short due to a boats schedule.
I have no issue if they set a 1 hour bottom time limit.
But I get a bit grouchy when I am forced to get back in the boat with over 1000 psi left in my tank.

[tdtexas]

OK, DBD diver tell the truth. I had to go to the Bahamas to take a DNA test to prove Ana Nicole Smith's baby was really mine! I had a really bad drunken night in Mexia, TX last year!

Tom

[dustbowl diver]

Dusty ~ Sounds like a nice trip.

I hate it when I am forced to cut a dive short due to a boats schedule.
I have no issue if they set a 1 hour bottom time limit.
But I get a bit grouchy when I am forced to get back in the boat with over 1000 psi left in my tank.

It was a nice trip-how fast a week goes by. Wish I were some place I am currently not!!!

[dustbowl diver]

OK, DBD diver tell the truth. I had to go to the Bahamas to take a DNA test to prove Ana Nicole Smith's baby was really mine! I had a really bad drunken night in Mexia, TX last year!

Tom

And the results are in......................

[ScubaPunk]

Which dive op in Coz? I had that happen in Coz myself, and although I liked the dive master a lot, he was super-paranoid about getting back to the dock on time so he wouldn't be yelled at, and hence, had us come up when we had lots of air. I don't blame him, but the management of the op. This was with Papa Hogs about 4 years ago. After that, I switched op and haven't had it happen again. Of course, now the owner of that op had sold out, so will try to use Jesus (formerly from the op that SD uses) in the future as he was good with SD, and seems to be good running his own op based on reports from Pocahontas and LatitudeAdjustment.

The dive op we used was "Dive House". Never again.