Nekton Pilot Liveaboard by Sam

Nekton Pilot Liveaboard
Author: Sam

Posted by Sam on September 20, 1999 at 09:14:07:

Saturday 9/4/99: We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale about 1:00 pm and called the Nekton people to tell them we were there and ready to be picked up. They came in about 15 min. with a big white 15-passenger van. We were told that our luggage would be taken to the boat, but we couldn’t board until after 5:30 pm., because they were still cleaning and getting ready after the last group that returned that morning. We were dropped off at the Best Western Marina Motel and sat at the Tiki bar and had lunch. I went looking around the area, as thee were several shops just south of the motel. After I returned we chatted with others that were taking the trip. Finally 5:30 came and we boarded the ship. We were greeted by Pam, one of the crew, and shown to our room. It wasn’t big, but it was bigger than I expected. Our bags were there waiting for us. We went back out into the lounge area and introduced ourselves to others on the trip. We had a briefing where we were told what to expect and what was expected of us. After the evacuation drill we were given different choices of places to go eat supper. We went to a sports bar and grill and had a nice supper there. After returning to the boat, we got under way about 10:30 pm. I didn’t sleep that well the first night, because of the new bed and the excitement of the coming days.

Sunday 9/5/99: We arrived at Grand Bahamas to go through customs. This took about an hour or two as we were there before the agent got there. We just stayed on the boat while someone in the crew took care of the customs. After leaving there we headed for the first dive spot, called Indian Cay. We arrived there about lunchtime, so we had lunch before the dive briefing. The boat moved to a new location at night and at lunchtime. The sight for the afternoon dive was the sight for the night dives as well. Indian Cay was a nice reef dive with depth of about 55-60 feet between the coral heads, and 40-45 ft. on top of the coral. This was also the sight of the first night dive. I really like night dives as all the critters that you didn’t see during the day come out to say Hello.

Monday 9/6/99: We moved during the night to Scoto’s reef. This sight was one of the best of the trip. The reef was beautiful with a mini wall that started at about 40 feet and dropped to about 65 feet. The corals were in very good shape and the fish life was numerous. I would have liked to stay there several days. At lunch we moved to the Sugar wreck. This is a very shallow wreck not more than about 20 feet deep. It made for a long bottom time though. I think they said that it was about 80 years old and carried sugar and molasses. The wreck itself wasn’t in very good shape. It was scattered out over the bottom. The fish life here was huge. There were schools of grunts, jacks many barracudas, nurse sharks, the list goes on. We did the night dive here, but we cut it short as the current came up and it was tough swimming with that much current. Tuesday 9/7/99: We awoke to find the boat at the area that where we might see the spotted dolphins. We cruised around looking for a pod of the dolphins, and then we would jump in with snorkel gear as scuba scares them. Well we did get a pod to come and surf the pressure wake of the boat, then we all jumped in ready to interact with them, but they took off. So we went to the Theo’s wreck. This was a very good wreck and a deep dive as well. The wreck was in tact at about 110 feet to the bottom. It was lying on its starboard side. The fish life wasn’t as good as the reefs, which is understandable at that depth. The ship had big holes cut into it for easy access. There is a large green eel that live in the wreck, but we didn’t see him that day. Maybe he was away on vacation as well. We were down about 33 min, not at that depth all the time. When we went down the surface was not to bad, but when we came up the surface had gotten rough with whitecaps wind and rain. I looked up at the crew guy on the dive deck and said, “What the heck happened while we were down?” It was just one of the squalls that come and go in the Bahamas. It was gone and the sun was out in 30 min. after we got back on the boat. That afternoon we had moved to shark junction. This is where the dive operations from Grand Bahamas Island do their shark feedings. There is a flat sandy spot with an old hyperberic chamber where the guest line up with their backs to the chamber to watch the feeders at work. We swam up to the coral heads that encircle the feeding sight, and watched. There weren’t very many doing the feeding, so the number of sharks was only about 6-10 sharks. They swam right by us without much notice of us or it seemed. I saw one swim right under me with a big fishhook in his mouth and the line trailing behind him, about a foot or two. It was very exciting, but we weren’t scared at all. It just seemed natural to have them swim by within arms reach. After that dive we went ashore to Port La Caya with another couple for a bit of shopping. There wasn’t much to it and one guy kept trying to get us to come to his moma’s shop. He said, “ She has better stuff at her shop”. We were getting tired of this guy; so the other guy told him that we had spent all out money, but this other family from the boat had more money and really needed his help. He left us for them. The son of that group saw what we did and said; “ We’ll get you for this”. But they never did.

Wednesday 9/8/99: This morning found us at the Gingerbread, Rocky Mountain High sight. This was another sight where there were coral heads at 40-45 feet and the sandy bottoms at about 50-60 feet. Vary nice corals and many different fish. There was no current and the dives were very easy. On one of the coral heads we saw a barracuda back in a hole. There was only a small amount of light, which only illuminated his eyes and teeth. It looked very Erie. At lunch we moved to the wreck of the Hesperus. This was another shallow wreck with a lot of fish. Not as many as the sugar wreck, but there were many rays here. It the stingray city of the Bahamas. They were some of the biggest Barracudas I have seen. These were 5-6 feet long if they were an inch. We did the night dive here and the rays were thicker than they were during the day. We also saw loggerhead turtles, about 4 or 5 of them. They were big, probably 3-4 feet across the shell. One came up to the dive deck and was right at the steps that you jump off of, so we couldn’t get in until he moved. When we did jump in, there were about 10-15 small (1foot) squid right behind the boat. I guess they were attracted to the lights of the dive deck.

Thursday 9/9/99: That morning found us moored at the Thumbnail. This was a mini wall reef that was shaped like a thumb, I guess. There was quite a bit of current on this dive, so we only did one at this location. We dropped off the top down the wall to about 104 feet. This was the only dive where we encountered a thermocline. You could see the layer of water between the warmer upper water and the cooler water below as a wave like you see on the highway when it’s hot. I only wore a swimsuit on most of the dives as the water temp was about 86 deg. At the thermocline it was about 80 deg. At lunch we moved to a new sight called the strip. This was a shallow strip of three coral heads in about 45 feet of water. This sight wasn’t very impressive. We did see scorpion fish, several crabs a small spotted eel, and a Sargent major fish that would bite anyone that came near it nest area, or at least I think it was a nest area. He got me on the calf. Shore trip was available to Alice Town on Bimini. We didn’t go. Two of the girls that did said it wasn’t worth the trip. The night dive was a much better dive. A loggerhead turtle that came cruising through right under me and took me by surprise. My wife did her nightdive here for her Advanced openwater. We were the first in, while the others were watching the nightly slideshow. It was on fish ID this night. They did their night navigation, and then we sat on the bottom and turned off all our lights. It was neat and erie as well sitting with only the distant lights from the boat to see by. When you swished your hand through the water, you could see tiny sparkles of light from the bioluminescence plankton. It was a cool dive.

Friday 9/10/99: The morning dive was at a sight called the Hammer. It got its name because of the Hammerhead shark that lived around this sight. The crew said that they hadn’t seen him for awhile though. We didn’t see him either, (Rats). We were looking forward to seeing a hammerhead. The dive was very good though. The corals were colorful and with many fish. There was a slight current on this dive, but not bad. We headed into the current until it was time to head back, then we just drifted back to the boat. There was a mini wall here as well that dropped down to about 100+ feet. We did drop over the wall on the first dive to about 75 feet. The second dive we stayed on top of the coral in about 40 feet of water. Many of the other guests couldn’t dive anymore after the morning dives, because of the 24-hr. rule, as they were flying out the next day. That afternoon we went to a sight called Tuna Alley. I guess they did a lot of tuna fishing at one time. The current was very swift for the dive we did, so we didn’t want to do a night dive with that current. We just took it easy the rest of the day. That evening we had the slide show to pick the winner of the photo contest. This consisted of all the divers who took slides and had the crew photo guy develop them. My wife was a runner up, but didn’t win. After the slide show, we previewed the video that the crew video guy made during the week. It was not bad, so we got one for $45.00. We stayed up later than normal while we did the crossing back to Ft. Lauderdale.

Saturday 9/11/99: We awoke to find we were back at the port in Ft. Lauderdale. We had all of our bags in the main salon area for the immigration guy to inspect if he wanted to. He just looked at all of the passports and other ID materials. He asked me if I enjoyed the trip, and I said I did. After that he left the boat and we started to take our gear off and head out for home or what ever. We stayed over night at the Best Western Marina Motel. We went out to dinner with our new friends Dennis and Sharon.

Sunday 9/12/99: We got up and said goodbye to our friends and got ready for the trip back home.

We had a great time and are looking forward to going on another trip with the Nekton crew. We hope to go on the Belize trip in 2000. This will give them time to work out the bugs of setting up the trip for this year.