Fourth Quarter 2009 Web Winner Announced! The end of 2009 snuck up on us all so quickly! Visitors to our website are invited to enter to win a quarterly drawing for a free cruise- for the last quarter of 2009, the lucky winner is Tammy Scott of Charlotte, NC! Not your lucky day- try, try again! We'll draw again on April 1st, 2010! Don't wait to get lucky- book your trip now to get wet soon! THIRD QUARTER WEB WINNER 2009 Visitors to our website are invited to enter a contest to win a free cruise. The drawing is quarterly! Congratulations to VINCE HAYWARD of Covington, LA! Not your lucky day? enter to win the fourth quarter draw! Don't wait to get lucky to plan your next dive vacation...book today! See you in the Bahamas! West Jet from Toronto to Nassau NONSTOP Beginning in November of 2009, West Jet will offer nonstop service from Toronto to Nassau! No more connections, great prices and less likely to lose your luggage! Check out their introductory offers at www.westjet.com http://www.westjet.com Bonne Terre Treasure Hunt Winner of a Blackbeard's Cruise Blackbeard's Cruises strongly supports local diving communities and their efforts to keep divers wet and active in our wonderful sport! Recently, the Bonne Terre Mine hosted an underwater event that was well attended! Divers came from all over to collect poker chips from the mine's floor to be used to bid on prized after! We donated a cruise for one valued at 899.00 to the cause. The lucky winner of the auction is Eric Fitzpatrick of WI! Eric said" This prize interested me the most and I won it! Very excited about being on a 65' sailboat and diving with Blackbeard's. I came to Missouri from Wisconsin expecting nothing but a wonderful time diving in the Bonne Terre Mine and I am leaving with so much more. The experience was great! I now get to experience even more thanks to Bonne Terre and Blackbeard's Cruises. I am new to diving and this is a great way to start my underwater life." Have an event that promotes the sport of diving? Let us know if we can help you! 30th Anniversary Blackbeard's Cruises celebrated it's 30 anniversary June 9. Thirty years ago on June 9, 1979 the Sea Explorer departed with a groups of boy scouts on it's 1st trip headed to the new Florida Keys Sea Base. Bruce Purdy, the founder, was the captain this week. He had a group from Indianapolis, led by Ikelite's Bob "Stubby" Stubbs, onboard to help us celebrate. It was appropriate that it was Stubby's 30th trip with Blackbeard's Cruises. Pictured above is Stubby, Hank Weech of Weech's Dock and Marina in Bimini, Rhonda Stubbs and Bruce. We've been docking at Weech's every week for 30 years now! 2009 Long Beach Scuba Show Winner Lindsey really enjoyed visiting with everyone at the Scuba Show this year- thanks for stopping by to say hi and learn more about our cruises! We raffled off a free cruise at the show- and the winner is....... MARC PIERRE of Los Angeles! Not your lucky day- register in our quarterly drawing below... http://www.blackbeard-cruises.com/scuba-diving-cruise-contest.html Captain Grayson Miller III Captain Grayson Miller joined our crew way back in 2002 as a dive instructor. He immediately took to life at sea and has worked his way up the ranks to head honcho out there! Captain Grayson leads the crew of the Morning Star and its passengers on weekly adventures. His prowess as a freediving hunter have fed many happy passengers! Grayson is best known for his ability to create instant camaraderie among the new passengers. It's always old home week on the Morning Star! Second Quarter 2008 Winner Announced from Web Drawing Congratulations to Brent McInnis of Orlando, FL! Blackbeards Intern Andy Bennett OWU Sholarship Program Travel and Tourism Internship Blackbeard's Cruises believes that we must invest in the future of our business by giving back in a hands on way! This is our first foray into the internship program sponsored by Our World Underwater Scholarship Society. This internship provides the opportunity to gain experience in multiple aspects of a small cruise company’s operations—including market development, customer service, boat operations, and logistics. Blackbeard's Cruises offers liveaboard scuba diving adventure travel to the Out Islands of the Bahamas. Our 2008 intern Andy Bennett was asked to help us increase the number of Boy Scouts troops that go on our boats. He put sent out a survey to scout leaders asking them what they werer looking for in high adventure trips, went on scout trips to learn what the socuts liked doing and to learn from the leaders what they wanted. He then put together a scout section (below) on our website. Sent out another survey to scout leaders to see what changes they would make. Andy did a great job of putting everything together and is now back in school at Western Washington University. http://www.blackbeard-cruises.com/scouts 2008 First Quarter Web Winner Announced Each quarter a lucky diver wins a free cruise with us! Congratulations go to KAITLYN REJZER OF WILMINGTON, NC! Compleat Angler Burns The Compleat Angler burnt to the ground in January, 2006. Ernest Hemmingway was a regular and the Angler during his stays there. Among the many old pictures on the walls were pictures of Hemmingway with quotes from his books. Sawfish sighting On the Morning Star's Oct 21 trip the passengers were treated to diving with a small-toothed sawfish. Diving with these endagered fish is very rare. There has been only 1 sighting recorded out of the 100,000 REEF survey dives. This picture was shot by Rick Kenna of Ft Collins, CO. The fish in front of the sawfish is a cobia.