Almost everyone arrived a day early so we could ensure we did not miss the boat and to have a chance to relax a bit before starting the trip. We spent the extra day relaxing and sightseeing the island in a wonderful tour that took us to the spice factories, waterfalls, shopping, the rainforest and more.
We boarded our liveaboard and departed the evening of the 27th after getting the last of our divers and luggage from the airport. Our trip started in Grenada where our first day of diving would have been in my favorite place...Isle de Rhone (the next island in the Grenadines) but due to winds we moved to Bequay (spell?) and dove there the first day. As is usual for a first dive day the sites were not as exciting but the wreck we dove was quite nice and FULL OF LIFE.
We then headed to St Vincent where the diving picked up and we were able to add some fun land tours to see some of the filming locations of Pirates of the Caribbean! Arrr matey...it was a pirate's dream and new year indeed! Some of us took one of the afternoons to go sight seeing and saw a beautiful Botanical Garden, the fort, spectacular island views and other sites on the island of St Vincent.
The diving in St Vincent was full of critters including flying gunnards, SEA HORSES, and all sorts of eels, fish, crustations, squids, octopi and more. We even saw some nursesharks, an eagle ray (the other boat saw 5 of them) and a number of turtles. Again we dove a wreck in St Vincent that was quite nice and FULL OF LIFE!
The walls in St Vincent were quite lovely but sadly due to current issues we did not dive on them as much as I would have enjoyed. And while typically more critters are up on the shallows than on the walls, the walls were stunning none the less and I would have enjoyed a bit more time on them.
After St Vincent we headed back to Isle de Rhone area to dive Diamond rock among other sites. These sites were layered in varying corals, and sponges and typcially centered around rocks jutting from the ocean for which we dove around these islands of life. You felt as if you were the ONLY diver there and were seeing something that maybe no other diver had ever seen. It was quite lovely and beautiful. Oh yeah and the fish/critters are stupid being more in the open than on most dives! Most of these were drift dives and sometimes we stayed together as a group and sometimes we found ourselves in 'several groups'. It did not matter as we all dove with VERY BIG SAFETY SAUSAGES (some bigger than others)
and we all practiced deploying our SMB's aka surface marker bouys and so with the private tenders these small boats could find us no matter where we surfaced. 
Two of our divers started and completed thier DEEP specialty and christened those skills on the Bianca C a luxury liner that sunk in the 60's in 90-165 ft of water. While parts of her are sadly crumbling to the ocean floor...the first class swimming pool is still in tact and the bow is still intact and she still makes a beautiful dive albiet way to short for most of us. The Bianca C was dove on our last day of diving and was followed up by a very shallow dive in Grenada proper as the final dive of the trip and representing the first island of the Grenadines.
After diving we headed to Fish Friday to taste and experince the local culture and we delivered our school supplies to the Boy's Home. They not only remembered us from several years ago...they even remembered that I was from Texas!
Our favorite dive instructor joined us for the evening in town and was almost as much fun as the venue itself! Yep...that would be our very own Geoff aka Jake Blues!
We were the first group he had hung out with since being on the island and in fact it was the first time he'd been able to see ANY of the island since arriving 4 months earlier. Tammy aka SeaSeaker stayed a few extra days diving with Aquanauts Grenada (lucky girl)
while the rest of us started traveling home after a wonderful trip and exceptionally wonderful way to start the new year off right....DIVING!!! 
Our dive crew was quite good ESPECIALLY our newest member Geoff aka Jake Blues and our only real complaint was that Geoff didn't get to dive with us EVERY dive!
We only wish you all could have joined us...but then there is always NEXT YEAR!!
