The dive trip was organized through Bimini Undersea who took care of the flight from FLL, accomodations, and diving. Stayed at the Big Game Resort which all things considered was a good location. It's the largest accomodations option on the island and the only complaint my group came away with was the day and a half they didn't have bottled water and the day they didn't have any fish (I ate a cheeseburger in Bimini, how wrong is that?). The dive operator there is fantastic, great staff, let us dive where we wanted and on our own. The rest of the island is filled with some of the friendliest people you'll ever meet (if anyone makes it to the end of the world bar you may find a little something I left behind). ;-)
The weather, unfortunately, did not cooperate the whole time. We missed a couple of dive days due to the high winds blowing in. The temperature on the island was what we expected (highs in the mid to high 70s, lows in the 60s). Water temperature was also what we expected ranging from the mid to high 70s and a 3mm wetsuit was plenty.
We were fortunate in that we were the only divers there at the time so we got to request the dive sites we wanted to hit. We requested the two wrecks they're famous for (the barge and the sapona) and the continental shelf in addition to some other popular ones (tuna alley, turtle rocks, little caverns, etc). The Nodules at the continental shelf was definitely the most beautiful site. Lots of colorful coral and reef fish on the "nodules" then out over the shelf it's nothing but blue. On the trip we saw our fair share of nurse sharks, turles, rays, barracuda, lobster and crab (night dive), and reef fish. On the barge we also happened upon schools of permit and african pompano.
But the dive that we will never forget (as mentioned above) was at south turtle rocks. A pair of atlantic bottlenose dolphins decided to not only check us out but actually stayed with us and played for about 15 mins. I've had dolphins race by in the past but never had them stay with us divers. According to the dive operators, in the 12 years they've been there it's only happened a few times. Not wanting them to leave I started playing with them, dolphin kicks, barrell rolls, somersaults...I was told I do a good dolphin.
All in all a great trip, highly recommend it to anyone (especially you floridians who live right there). We were given a three day dive credit for the days we missed so I will be back soon.
Kal
Edited by houdiver, 24 January 2005 - 10:55 AM.