I just returned from a wonderful week of diving on one of the most beautiful and healthest reef I've ever seen in the Caribbean. I went with a buddy who I've dived with in Bonaire a couple of times. Getting him to go someplace besides Bonaire is tough but he said he had a great time. We spent a week on the Wind Dancer one of the Peter Hughes fleet. We booked at the last minute and got 25% off the normal price and since I had been on the Sun Dancer in 2004 I got free Nitrox for the week as well. The boat is equiped for 18 divers plus crew and the week we went there were only 8 divers so instead of having to share a room they gave us each our own room(except for the one couple aboard). The boat itself looks a bit old but it's very well equiped and in excellent condition. With only 8 of us it seemed huge. The sundeck is one of the biggest I've seen on any liveaboard and the lounge/dining area is also very roomy. The crew was great as were all of the other passengers except one. This person was impossible and the crew and other passengers were ready to drown her. She was as bad above water as she was below. I could go into endless stories about her but I think I've said to much about her already. As with all liveaboards the food is included and was very good but not as good as some I've been on. Booze was also included but diving and drinking don't mix well so I had a few after finishing diving for the day as well as some wine with dinner. We(all 8 of us) took a vote early in the week and opted for the night dive to be had before dinner so we could drink wine with dinner. That being said the weather on the trip was far from perfect and due to rain and having to move the boat a lot we only did 5 dives on one day. We did do a number of dusk dives which turned into night dives but the schedule was adjusted daily due to having to move the boat. They normally offer 26 dives a week but we only did 23. We could have done a night dive after dinner one night but I think everybody(except my friend) decided it would be to late and opted for wine and not to dive. The diving is all done from tenders instead of the main boat like most(but not all) liveaboards. Almost all the dives are drift dives although some more in name.(i.e. some there really wasn't a heavy current but we only went in one direction). They limit dives to 50 mins and request you to be back on the tender with 500psi. That being said most dives were about 57 mins and a few were over an hour. I think they let us dive a little longer since we weren't always doing the 5 a day. My longest was 67 mins.
The diving itself was great although the viz wasn't. The viz varied from 30 to 40 feet to as much as 80 feet but most were about 40-60. The sites were all very good but the the ones around the Sisters and Speyside stand out as excellent. Great reef and tons of stuff to see. I saw lots of interesting things including many spotted scorpion fish, cobias, eagle rays, stingrays, tarpons, nurse sharks, black tip sharks, caribbean reef squid, octopuses, lettuce leaf sea slugs, seahorses, eels(green, spotted, chain, brown garden, sharp tail, golden spotted), hamlets(barred, golden and shy), purple crowned sea godess(nudibranch), decorator crabs, spanish lobsters, spiny lobsters, angelfish(every kind), butterfly(every kind), many types of damsels, sailfin and secretary blennies, gobbies, oversized arrow crabs and some huge channel clinging crabs(locally called king crabs), hermit crabs, grunts(almost all types), squirrelfish(a few types) and much much more including 2 short nose batfish. The fish population was very very healthy and the reef even more so. Two of the other divers have dived in Grenada and said the diving there is similar although they liked Tobago better. Anyway those of you going to Grenada are in for a treat if it's anything like what I saw.
All in all I had a great time in spite of the woman who was beyond difficult.
Edited by chinacat46, 05 June 2005 - 01:27 PM.
