This post isn’t about the dives, that’s in four other posts (one per day). Instead, I want to muse about the liveaboard experience itself.
I’ll from the top: booking. I was already to be in Thailand from the 4th – 18th, and finishing a group trip in Khao Lak, where all the liveaboards leave from, so the plan was to ditch out during the third segment of the group trip and go dive. I looked at several boats, at liveaboard.com, and at padi.com. Because I was primarily focused on something that fit between my arrival into Khao Lak on the 13th and not extend my vacation very far, I landed on a four day, thirteen dive northern Similan trip on the MV Bavaria, from the 15th-18th, meaning I just extended my trip by one day for the flight buffer.
The boat actually runs a week, and its possible to leave or join midway, so we travelled out to the liveaboard on a speedboat since we were just in the back half of the trip. Eighty minutes later, our gear was on deck, we were getting a briefing from the diving lead, and we were just about twenty minutes from our first dive.
Getting Ready to Dive
Equipment prep is one of the most stark differences between this liveaboard and charter diving. I’m used to “setup your gear, dive, swap your gear to a new tank in the surface interval, dive again.” In this case, once I setup my gear, I never changed it. Between dives, we just removed our regulators and they filled the tanks in place. It made each dive just that much more enjoyable.
From dive briefing to getting on the dinghy was maybe five minutes. More if I was in a wetsuit. The boat was organized into four dive groups, and we were spaced every other tank on one side of the deck or the other, and deployed in two stages, so while it was a bit congested, it was spaced out reasonably well.
The dive locations seemed pretty flexible; weather, goals, visibility. What was originally planned could change to get the best out of the dives. A couple of our dives, they chose to forego quality for a chance to see a whale shark or other large fish (which was unsuccessful). Richelieu Rock, we left early because viz was bad and currents were high. I appreciate the flexibility, and I recognize that the dive masters want to see this stuff, too!
Boredom and Buddies
I was afraid that, being stuck on a boat for four days would lead to boredom, or a crazy rush. It was neither. Food, an hour or two of downtime, then another dive. About half the boat was spending the downtime going through fish books, writing in their logs, doing a debrief with their DM, some were taking a nap, some were reading or sunning on the top deck. But honestly, that time just flew by. I felt neither rushed, nor bored, but just dove from sunup to sundown, and each day felt complete when it was over.
A few of the people on the boat were doing their Nitrox course material. Everyone dove nitrox, and those that weren’t certified, did it on the boat. It was necessary, even if they didn’t say so. The bulk of the dives were at 20-30m, and on at least one of them, I was pushing NDL. Diving on air would not have been possible, or at least, I would have been the one pulling us up out of the water early for reasons other than an empty tank.
The boat was filled with people from all over: Poland, Germany, France, Australia, Finland, the UK… 12 countries across 20 travelers. Several were couples, Josh and I friends, several were solo travelers. English was the common language used, even though it was a German boat with German and Thai dive pros. The one thing that was common is that we were all divers, and that made for pretty compatible personalities.
Six days into our Thailand trip, Josh and I had scheduled a single day dive, partially to finish up his AOW cert we started in Cancun, partially for me to check out my gear before the liveaboard, but mostly because we had a free day and our resort, the Sivilai Beach Resort in Koh Muk, has a dive shop on site.
We chatted with them the day before, and I asked about where we were diving, how far the boat ride, etc, as I wanted to bring the right gear (the shop is literally 50 feet from my room). I mentioned wearing my wetsuit out to the boat, and they laughed. Wetsuit? Apparently, the outside temperature is 83F, and the water temperature is also 83F. Fortunately, I had picked up a 1.5mm swim top on the REI clearance rack, so this and shorts became my dive gear.
We went out to Koh Kradan, about a 20 minute ride on a longtail boat, with just one DM (from Mexico!), one instructor, Josh and me. When we got down, visibility was awful, maybe five feet at best. Fortunately, this is a site that our shop goes to almost daily, so we did get to see stuff that they “knew where it was”, generally speaking.
Highlights of the two sites: several clownfish in their own reef, a trio of seahorses pipefish, a trio of cuddlefish, one large and one very small black and white eel, a very interesting and large clam, some coral life quite different than what I’ve seen elsewhere, lionfish, and some nudibranch.
The lowlight of this dive was, distracted by my camera and lacking any visibility, I did slice my palm wide open, and my shin slightly too. As well, the GoPro does not focus well in camera mode in low viz, though the videos do fine. Guess it’s video stills for the liveaboard: glad to know that ahead of time!
Some key learnings for myself: the GoPro does a poor job focusing on camera shots in low visibility, I should stick to video mode and grabbing stills. My mouthpiece may have been a leading cause of my at-depth panic in March, I’ve swapped it now, but found some mini unwarranted freakouts on these dives, and it seemed to be tied to the mouthpiece (weird). And Newskin should be in my travel kit.
Seven nights, St Marten, St Thomas, and Coco Cay; Tripp, D, and I left on the third largest cruise ship on the ocean over spring break. I didn’t want to overload Tripp in diving, so we skipped St Martin, booked St Thomas, and booked a single dive on Coco Cay, which only took the first hour of the seven at port.
St Thomas – Admiralty Dive Center
Operator
Site
Dive
Depth
Bottom Time
Admiralty Dive Center
Buck Island
62
59.7
39 minutes
Dive Flag
63
67.4
34 minutes
Exiting the cruise ship promptly at 7:30, we were met by a downpour of rain. Navigating to the pickup point was difficult: I couldn’t use my phone, so we went in approximately the right direction till I could find somewhere secluded to check where to go. Unfortunately, I overshot by a couple of blocks, and we backtracked to a coffee shop just a few minute walk from the port.
We were met by another family from the cruise ship, and the owner of Admiralty, to be taken the mile or so down to the boat. As we prepped, the crew kept checking the weather, and the rain didn’t seem to stop soon enough to wait, so we went out to the first dive site.
Buck Island featuring Señora Cartanza
A WWII Freighter, turned “agricultural” ship, made its way to the bottom of the sea floor, and was moved to Buck Island to create a dive site at around 60ft. Tripp previously had wanted to see a wreck, and since there’s no passthroughs or anything requiring extra training, this was a great place to start.
Since the ship is around 60ft deep, we didn’t have tons of bottom time. Probably about 10 minutes were spent diving around the ship, and the other 20ish hitting the nearby reefs. A couple of turtles were spotted, a lionfish hiding under the rocks, and pretty typical sealife.
Dive Flag
Tripp started this dive seeing his first reef shark! This dive was frustrating to me, one group on the dive with us was hunting lobsters, which alone isn’t a big deal. However, their awareness of the gear they were lugging was horrid, they smacked coral, they drug it through reefs. And once they got distracted by a lobster, all awareness of what they were doing was gone. It was quite fun watching him catch the lobster, try and bag it, and have it get away from his catch tool — karmic even.
My camera battery had died on dive one (due to both a long accidental video, and using the generic batteries), so I swapped it for a second. Unfortunately, the battery was dead when I tried to turn the camera on underwater. An inspection in the room later showed that salt had gotten onto the positive terminal; hopefully, a bit of tweezer and IPA action will clear it up, but I had no camera for dive two.
Otherwise, this dive was a pretty standard 60ft reef, decent life, decent coral, pretty consistent with what I remember of St Thomas.
Not so Perfect Day at Coco Cay
All gear packed, heading down to the shore; about a five to ten minute walk lugging the gear, then dragging the wheels through the sand. And…? Dive cancelled due to wind.
I wasn’t surprised, the surface looked pretty rough. I believe you get dragged behind a jetski to the dive start, then beach exit, so it’d be a fairly rough go, but the dive shack said they notified the excursion deck at 9am, and I hadn’t been told when we left just prior to 10am. I’m sure they were slammed by all of the different excursions being cancelled (snorkeling, kayaking, diving, etc), but lugging two people’s worth of gear down to be told later it was off was definitely rough.
28 days prior to the travel date, I realized that I needed to use my timeshare by 31st March, and also that Josh needed to get back into the water, and start his advanced cert work, or our planned Thailand trip wasn’t going to work. So with no notice, I booked a room, flights, and asked him to join me if he could.
Reddit recommended Aqua Adventures for a dive shop, so I communicated with them for a couple weeks, and arranged a refresher course on Saturday, and AOW on Sunday and Monday, with a possible day off or fourth day of diving on Tuesday.
Weekend Winds – A Failure to Launch
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday winds were 20+ MPH, with gusts up to 40. While the ferry may be able to cross with that wind, the docks close for smaller boats. So all our plans went down the drain. One day of diving wasn’t going to get Josh his AOW, and it felt a waste to do the refresher as our only dive, so instead, Josh did a “recertification” course on Monday, with a small shore dive for skills refreshes. It got us in the water, and while it only went as far as swimming around under the docks, it also got us practiced at skills neither of us had used for a decade-plus.
Barco C-55 – My First Panic, My First Called Dive
Backrolling off the boat, we did a very quick descent, followed by a moderately hard swim into the current to reach the wreck. Josh and Danny then started their skills and I… well, I started freaking out. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t pull in air, couldn’t successfully breathe. I wanted to pull out my reg, but I held my hand in front of it, because I knew that was stupid.
Was it nitrogen narcossis? Probably not. We were only at 75ft, and I’ve never had anything like that before. Was it just a pure panic attack? Again, probably not, I’ve never had one of those before either. In retrospect, my “best guess” — and that’s all I’ll ever have — is it was a mixture of bad GI issues the two days prior, low calorie intake because of that, a swim that shouldn’t have been hard (but was, due to caloric deficit), and some amount of narc induced panic.
I notified Danny that I wasn’t doing well. We called the dive right away, and fortunately Josh had already had a chance to do the skills, and safety ascended. I tried to signal at 40ft that I’d calmed down, and could try a slow descent, but Danny had already scrapped the dive, and that was fine. Hopefully, it’ll never happen again, but there are worse “bad endings” to a dive than a safe early-exit.
Grampin
No drama for the second dive of the day. This drift dive was along a large area of coral, at about 25 feet, with a pretty typical subtropical mix of small and medium life. Stingrays, nudibranchs, crabs and lobsters, and schools of tropical fish. I didn’t photograph much, given my previous freak-out, I primarily wanted to focus on calm, and my breathing. I was the first out of air, but I also started about 400psi below Josh and Danny, so it wasn’t horrible, even though my breathing wasn’t great.
Good Night Moon, Good Night Stars
After a short break, we finished our day of diving with a night dive. This was a less comfortable dive for Josh, as using the flashlight means you’re a bit more centrally focused. For me, this dive was the best of the three. The Leton floods did great for illuminating a wide area as I went to photograph, and seeing the big puffers, lobsters, and other more secluded aquatic life out and about made for a very different view than the previous dive.
The “basket star” was a new thing for me, having never done a reef dive at night. And seeing a moray out and about was neat, though photographing it was tough as it retreated quickly from my lights.
This little guy swam in circles with me, following my light for over a minute, till I left it be to continue its evening undisturbed.
Slug Bug!
MUSA, or the Museo Subacuatico de Arte, is a set of statues, and other art pieces, located underwater, slowly forming an underwater reef at about 20 feet, enough to see by snorkeling (if the viz is a bit better) and definitely designed for diving. The artist has installations all across the world, which would make an amazing to-do list for diving!
Groups of tens of statues, bugs, individual pieces of art, and more are all throughout the area. The artist is Jason deCaires Taylor, his portfolio is definitely worth a visit at https://underwatersculpture.com/
Josh had to return home too early to make these dives, so I had booked it to allow the lone diver scheduled for that day not to be cancelled. Instead, when I got there, two snorkelers were waiting in the shop. By the time we were about to go, six snorkelers were there, and two other divers, a dad and his daughter (discover scuba student). Unfortunately for the snorkelers, the visibility meant there wasn’t a lot for them to see.
This wasn’t the most vibrant area for life, but there is no doubt that that will change in time. Already, there is growth on the art pieces, just about fifteen years in, and coral and life takes decades to grow. While the dive had to be called a tad early due to the discover student getting too cold, it was a great, easy, shallow dive that I’d recommend for anyone. And perfect for a discover student.
Return to Manchones
One of the most unique, and beautiful fish I saw was the flying gurnard. Danny said it reminds him of the Dilophosaurus (well, he said the one in Jurassic park that has the… then gestured with his hands the neck frilling out), and I totally agree.
A beautiful two foot needlefish, great schools of porkfish, more giant puffers hiding under rocks, and a great view of a stingray swimming were just some of the highlights of this dive. While, like the others, I’d say this wasn’t anything unique, or spectacular, it was definitely a healthier reef than we saw in the keys, and a perfect example of why I love to dive.
Our trip to Key West was wholly planned as a dive trip, one day each for arrival and departure, and three days of reef diving with Captain’s Corner, where cousin Derek Bardini works as a dive instructor.
Our departure was on the red eye from Sacramento, though delayed an hour and we missed our Key West connection flight. Instead of arriving at noon, we arrived in the early evening on Wednesday. Still arriving in time for three days of diving, we checked in on Wednesday to the Parrot Key hotel, went out for an arrival dinner, then got to bed to prep for our first afternoon of dives.
Sand Key – I’m Not Lost!
Miscommunication with Derek (he thought we were late to the whole first day, not just our arrival) meant that Tripp and I headed out on day one as unguided divers. We got to the boat around 1pm for a 2pm dive time.
Gear setup and ready, the captain gave us a rundown of our first dive site, Sand Key, and how the reefs are laid out in the Marine Sanctuary. We got down to depth and I saw plenty of coral and life, so we headed out to view what Florida had to offer. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t understand well enough the description, and we followed coral and life, but didn’t head out in the correct direction and missed the main reefs for the first half of our dive.
Visibility was moderate at best, though the warm waters were a nice treat. We spent about a half hour swimming through the coral, then caught one of the reef “fingers” for the last fifteen minutes of the dive site. Tripp would say I was lost, but I would say that I knew where we were relative to the boat fine (we came up within twenty feet of the boat), but we did miss out on a lot of what we could have seen.
With about ten minutes to go, Tripp pointed out (whether in “Oh cool, look at that!” or “Oh crap, look out!” I can’t be certain), a group of jellyfish at the surface. We swam for a few minutes longer at the reef, yet when getting back onto the boat, Tripp was stung in the leg! Fortunately, these aren’t horrible, just about the equivalent of a bee sting, and a bit of vinegar helped denature the sting. Three total divers were stung, as about ten jellies were hanging out at the boat ladders.
Eastern Dry Rocks – Reef Fingers
Tripp and I headed out to the reef following the captain’s instructions properly for the second dive. A few trips around the fingers of reef and we saw quite a bit more life on this dive than the first. We also ran into a lot more of the other divers this trip, and enjoyed viewing the plethora of coral and life along the reef. Unfortunately for the dive (and the first), we missed the shark, the sting ray, saw only one grouper, and generally all the “awesome” items to see in the Florida Keys, though we did have a great and beautiful dive. Visibility is only about 20 feet, and the surge was getting pretty strong by the end. In fact, the boat ride back was in 3-4 foot waves, and Tripp was looking a bit green before and after the dive, but altogether, this was a pleasant and fun dive trip, and much more successful navigation.
Eastern Dry Rocks – Day Two
Derek joined us on the ship today, taking us back to the same two dive sites from the previous day. The boat has limited locations for diving when the winds are heavy, so while things were a little more calm on day two, we stuck to the same sites as before.
Two big differences exist on these reef dives versus what I’m used to. The first is the start time; I’m quite used to dives starting early morning, but because Captain’s Corner dives the Vandenburg in the morning, the reef dives happen in the afternoon. The second is the surface interval. Typically, I’m used to a thirty to sixty minute boat ride between locations, which also happens to be the surface interval. But because the reef area is pretty compact, and because the dives are generally less than thirty feet deep, the surface interval is just enough time to switch tanks, and we’re back in the water. Today’s dives started earlier than the 2pm start time, because there were boat races happening in Key West that made accessing the harbor impossible at the normal start time, so we began today at 11am instead.
The sites are plenty big enough to show a good variety in life each day, and with a guide to allow me more time to focus on the reefs and less on navigating, I was content in seeing plenty of new things. Tripp also felt a lot more comfortable on these dives, bringing along his camera for this trip.
The keys are heavy with fan coral, brain coral, parrotfish, wrasse, tangs, and most things you find in warm water tropical dives. What’s different between these and Hawai’i, for example, are the nurse sharks, the groupers, sting rays, jellyfish, green morays, and more. While we again didn’t see any sharks or other big ticket items, the dive was plenty full of great flora and fauna, if a bit low on visibility.
Sand Keys – Day Two
The other item to note on today’s dives versus the previous is that Derek also had a Discover SCUBA student and a very new diver in the group with us. This is always risk; the depth of these reefs is perfect for a Discover dive, but someone with only a couple hours of pool experience may burn through their air in a few minutes, may need to surface and stop the dive, or any number of additional risks to their dive and ours. Fortunately, David (the DS newb) and Manju (the beginning diver) both did great, and we had a nice long dive together.
Our second dive of Sand Keys meant we spent the whole dive in the reef, not “lost” among the coral. Here we see our first lionfish, a spiny lobster and a lobster carcass, some beautiful huge brain coral, and a significant amount of life. This was a much better day than the previous, and left a lot of hope for an even better third day of diving.
Day Three – Hay Stacks
Our final day of diving brough us to two new dive sites. Unlike the “fingers” of coral on the last two days, our first dive site today brought us to various independent reef formations, each with their own life and coral on them. Joining us today was a semi-frequent diver with Derek who came as a solo diver to make our group four. A beneficiary of the current remote workforce, he moved down to Florida since his work only requires a good internet connection and proximity to an airport.
The highlight of the first dive was the smallest turtle I’ve ever seen on a dive. Probably just two feet long, head to tail, he was swimming alone among the reefs. Tripp has seen a plethora of turtles among his dives, so while not a unique experience, always a highlight item for any day of diving, and fortuitous since we saw several on our boat trip in, and I was hoping that wasn’t our only turtle visitation.
Cannonball Cut
Our final dive site of our trip was Cannonball Cut, named after the former existence of cannonballs dropped from ships as they had to lower their weight to pass through the shallow reefs. Here, we saw the best items of our entire trip.
Day two showed us our first grouper. This last dive showed us several. From a beautifully camouflaged grouper lodged in the coral, to a three-hundred plus pound goliath swimming with two other groupers, this would be the one unique item among my diving history.
We also did a fun passthrough beneath some of the coral, saw a second and very beautiful lionfish (the one pictured above), and finished with the best dive of the trip.
Thank you Derek Bardini for taking us out in your home town, thank you Captain’s Corner for the great coordination and support, and thank you to my family for letting me take Tripp away for a few days.
Of the three dive trips, this was the one I was most anticipating, and unfortunately, the lowlight of our diving.
Booking a Manta dive during a peak season was a lot more difficult than I expected, and we almost didn’t get to do it. Because we also chose to have D and Damon snorkel the site, we were limited to a single dive (not a pre-dive and manta dive). We left with Aquatic Life Divers from the same docks we dove in the previous day, with a single dive master, Liliana, for the five or so of us diving, and a lead for the three snorkelers.
There are times when no manta show, but for us, we did get to see one for a minute or two, but… that was it. A highlight for this trip was actually the snorkelers, they got to see three or four manta in the area they went to. The organization of all the operators coming out and adding their lights to the “bonfire” is always impressive, and hopefully the next time I come out, there are a lot more rays to see.
The other interesting thing I encountered was a flounder that I had totally missed for several minutes, hanging out on a rock right in front of our waiting spot. Tripp says he saw it pretty early, but it seemed pretty camouflaged to me!
