Nassau Dive Trip Review

[sea-jay]

Sailed the Sovereign of the Seas to Nassau and Coco Cay following Thanksgiving day. Left early Friday morning and arrived in Nassau at noon on Saturday. Signed up with the Ship’s excursion just to see what kind of operation Stuart’s Cove had. (I had previously dived with DiveDiveDive in Nassau).

We were met on the dock by a representative that took us to their bus (only five diver’s from the ship) We got on the bus and waited about 10-15 minutes then drove around the block and parked again waiting for a group from another ship to join us. Ultimately we left the port area about ½ hour after getting on the bus.:( A 45 minute drive got us to the Stuart Cove Dive shop where some of the divers got their rental gear while the rest of us got aboard and started gearing up. Another 10 or so minutes was spent doing this. The dive boat finally left the dock about 1:45 or so for the five minute trip to our first dive site. We hit the water about 2:15 after receiving our dive information.

Total of 18 divers with one dive master. We were to do the ‘Follow the Leader’ type dive. He advised the less experienced divers or those that dove less than once a year to stay close behind him for safety purposes while the more experienced divers, could stay back. We were to go to the bottom and then follow him over a wall with a bottom at the 6,000’ level if we wanted. He did say he wasn’t going to the bottom though (at least on purpose);)

The dive was over the site they use for shark feeding so we were advised there might be some sharks in the area. As I was descending I noticed a shark cage anchored to the bottom floating about the 25 foot level and started to worry. :confused: Then I looked down and saw 6-8 sharks swimming directly below me and really started to worry. :eek: However, I guess they weren’t hungry that day as they just swam around us trying to decide if we were food or not. Altogether, there must have been 15-20 sharks in the area.

The dive was onto a reef at about the 45 foot level and then we went over the wall to about 80’. Some of the divers didn’t dive the wall but stayed up on the top.

We all had to surface after 40 minutes and we moved to a second site which had two old small oil tankers sunk for reefs. The dive master stayed at about the 20 foot level watching over everyone as they explored the ships. We were pretty much on our own for this dive. The major parts of one ship were pretty much at the 45-50’ level while the second ship started at 45’ and went down at the stern to about 70’. Alvin (dive master) requested we not dive the second ship except over and around the bow area. That way he could kind of watch all of us without losing sight of anyone.

Overall, the Stuart’s Cove operation was pretty smooth and I would dive with them again. While we did have 18 divers with us, the boat could have held a lot more but they split up dive groups into other boats. They have about 9-10 boats and every one went out that day. They could have jammed up the boats with 25-30 divers each and left a couple of boats at the dock but they made it more enjoyable for everyone by limiting the size of any one group.

Eventually I will get my photos of this dive trip posted on my Webshots page (link in my signature below, so check in once in a while.

Any questions???

[w&k]

Just exactly the information I was looking for!!!!

 

One stupid question for you...did the dive group meet up on the ship somewhere first, or directly on the dock?

 

I had a feeling that Stuart's Cove was going to be the ship's op after Nassau Dive Center went out of business. Last time I looked, I didn't find a note about cruise passengers, though.

 

I'm also not suprised about the follow the leader style-dive, but I am a bit suprised about 18 divers with 1 divemaster.

 

I will definitely be trying to sweet-talk the divemaster about that 40 min bottom time when it's our turn in a couple of weeks. I really don't like to get back in the boat with more than 2000 in my tank. Waste of air is a terrible thing.

 

Thanks for the review, and I can't wait to see the pix!

 

Wendy

[sea-jay]

Wendy - we met on the pier. No grouping on the ship.

 

Part of the reason for only one dive master may be becaus two members of our group were Master Divers/Instructors and they had informed the dive operator of this in case any help was needed. Also, only two of the divers were open water, the rest at least AOW and many with nitrox, S&R, etc certs. I guess they felt they could rest this trip.

 

One reason for the short bottom times were that they had divers from 3 different ships and we didn't get out of the water from our second dive until after 4 and back to the dock until after 4:20. They had to get some of the people back by 5:00. Actually, we only had about 30 minutes surface interval and that worried me a little since I was at 80' on the first dive, and the stern of the second wreck was at 70'. I guess that is another reason for the short dives.

[w&k]

I was hoping for a meet on the ship - nothing worse than standing around in the sun waiting for that last straggler to show up.

 

The C-levels and time factor definitely puts a different spin on the timing. We're on the morning dive, so it will be interesting to see how they work out various ships and timeframes.

 

We also volunteer to keep an eye on people when we're on trips - we were all newbies once upon a time. However, it's really relaxing to have an advanced group.

 

Thanks for all the great information, and I will post a review when we get back.

 

Did you dive CocoCay as well?

 

Wendy

[sea-jay]

Just did some snorkleing with friends we were traveling with. They were really impressed with my shorty, fins and prescription mask. I ended up towing in the wife because she was exhausted swimming back from the plane wreck site. Water was kinda rough.