Blackbeard's Cruises Bahamas liveaboard scuba diving

Blackbeard's Cruises

SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS
by Steve Elfers for the Army Times

It's not the "Love Boat." There is no dancing, no lounge entertainment and no formal dining at the captain's table. Sleep is not in cozy cabins, but in Pulman-type beds with only curtains for privacy, and the showers are limited each day. But you may just fall in love with what Blackbeard's Cruises has to offer.

For scuba divers, Blackbeard's sloops are a means of transport; the real adventure is beneath the water's surface, where they can observe and photograph beautiful aquatic life around coral reefs and shipwrecks.

The "live-aboard" vessels ferry divers from site to site, allowing them to reach more remote sites and to dive more often than if they stayed ashore.

"This trip is not for everybody. It's for divers or diving families," said Jim Seith, a retired Air Force colonel and fighter pilot who, with his wife, Alberta, took a seven day cruise to the Bahamas.

"The diving is awesome," said Seith. "One location was the best shark dive I've ever been on. And the wreck of the Hesperus, with it's loggerhead turtles, was unbelievable." "Rainbow Reef was spectacular. The fish really were a rainbow of color. And the huge wreck of the Lady Moore was a nursery for baby fish," added Alberta Seith.

The Seith family, of Annandale, Va., has been scuba diving since the summer of 1992 when daughter Kristin, now 16 decided she wanted to give the sport a try. Alberta Seith was the least enthusiastic about the venture. But the family took a "Discover Scuba" class at Ft Belvoir, Va., and she immediately took to diving, finding it much easier than snorkeling.

Jim Seith is now a master scuba diver trainer, and Alberta is an instructor. Their 19-year old son, J.T., a Marine private first class, is an advanced diver. And Kristin was the youngest certified rescue diver when she finished the course at age 15. Now Seith family vacations include some very exotic destinations. With their son joining the Marine Corps and their daughter in school, Jim and Alberta Seith decided to take the Bahamas cruise by themselves, aboard a Blackbeard's vessel, last October.

Divers gather in Miami on a Saturday between noon and 1 p.m. Passengers meet the crew at a barbecue, and they are assigned to one of three identical 65' sloops: Pirate's Lady, Morning Star and Sea Explorer. Each of the boats carries six crew members - including captain, first mate, dive instructor, cook, engineer and one other crew members - and up to 23 passengers. By 3 p.m., they are under way, with the crew sailing all night to make the crossing to the Bimini Islands, the closest of the Bahamian Islands to Miami, to clear customs the next morning.

Then the diving begins. With no set itinerary, the captain is free to choose the best dive sites based on the weather and experience. Among the choices: the waters around Bimini, Freeport on Grand Bahama Island, and the Berry Islands, halfway to Nassau on New Providence Island.

Although the three boats leave together and are often within sight of each other they do not follow the same diving itinerary necessarily. Wednesday nights, the vessels visit port in Bimini where the passengers can take hot showers, and then spend the night back aboard the boat.

Only divers would go out of their way to swim with sharks, and Jim and Alberta Seith speak warmly about their shark dive. "We descended to the sandy bottom to about 60'. There was this large coral wall that we kept to our backs. It was kind of an amphitheater," said Seith. " Once the divers are on the bottom and safe, the dive master brings a couple of fish on a spear. The sharks came right in, ate the fish, then hung around for the rest of the dive." The Seiths counted four Caribbean reef sharks and two nurse sharks. "It was the first shark dive I've been on where you actually were swimming with the sharks," said Alberta Seith. "One of the nurse sharks swam right through our legs."

A night dive on a coral reef, too, can be exciting, because many species of fish appear only at dark. The Seiths took three night dives during their cruise, one of which was around the shallow wreck of the Hesperus. Lying in only 20' of water, this early 20th-century wreck seems to be a gathering place for loggerhead turtles. The Seiths saw many turtles, stingrays, lobsters, trigger fish and a large red snapper near the wreck and the surrounding sea grass.

The Blackbeard crew stressed safety at every stage, from the initial briefing before boarding to the briefings before every dive. "They had every piece of modern safety gear," said Seith. "They never got casual or took shortcuts."

There is something about the sea air and a full day of diving that makes the appetite grow and the palette more responsive. On Blackbeard's vessels, the coffee is perking by 6 a.m. In addition to three meals a day, there are always cold drinks and fruit. "The Galley is the size of a walk-in closet but our cook fed 22 guests and six crew three times a day," said Seith. " and the food was ....oh, God, it was good!" "There was always plenty," says Alberta Seith. "And we've been on some liveaboards where you felt like you had to hoard food." All meals are included in the trip cost. If passengers fish, the meal may be the catch of the day.

The Seiths didn't mind the lack of privacy aboard. "We all got to be such good friends," says Alberta Seith.

For her husband, the sailing was an extra bonus. "At 9:30 at night, you're lying on the deck, exhausted from diving. It's quiet ... You're under full sail to the next day's location, and the Milky Way stretches out forever above you."

Blackbeard's Cruises
3700 Hacienda Boulevard
Suite G
Davie, FL 33314
Phone 954.734.7111 Toll Free 800.327.9600 Fax 954.321.6582
Questions, comments, suggestions? Email ws@blackbeard-cruises.com
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