Just got back to my hotel for a day of deco before my flight. I just did the Ultimate Getaway scuba vacation and it was a blast. If anyone is thinking about a live aboard, these guys rocked.
It is a 4 day trip 2 and a half of diving with a day to get out to Fort Jefferson in the Keys. Got in 12 dives including one on the Baja California that was sunk by a German U Boat in WWII and even got to keep a few bottles that I found from it.
The crew was great and lots of fresh food and snacks between dives. The bunks were large even for me at 6', so all in all, a great vacation. Weather kind of sucked today coming in but that is nothing they can control.
Total Bottom Time: 349 minutes.
Thanks for the report! You were there during the lobster mini-season? Did you catch any bugs?
How much was the trip? Do they have nitrox? Was anyone spearing?
This trip was a photo trip. They do different styles of trips from photo trips, spear fishing, and lobsters. We were doing a photo trip so we were in the national park area.
The best part of the trip, I got to dive with Dave Miner of
Dave is a super cool guy but I swear the guy is not human. After 35 minutes at the bottom on a drift dive, I was down to 750 and he still had 2000 pounds in his tank.Â
Oh yeah, yes they have Nitrox fills on board for I think $40 more but just about everything is taken care of for you. The prices for the trips depend on the trips but my was $725 for 3 days of diving, all food and tank fills. They supply the tanks and hard weights so you just have to dive, come up, much on the between dive snakes or the meal, and keep on diving while they move the boat between dives.Â
The only thing is and I'm sure this is true for a lot of live aboards, you need to get their early for the best bunks but all the bunks are great. Just wanted to make sure I got one in the back in case it got a little rough.Â
I'm already booking my trip for next year.
Thanks for the info. Glad you had a good time!
Sounds like a blast. Did you go with a group, a buddy, or alone?
looks like a great trip. I may have to see if I can fit one in the winter plans
I went with a buddy who knows the owner of the boat and it was a blast. Really did not get any special treatment since they treated everyone great. Their jokes were kind of lame but that was the worst part of the trip. "Scuba Pro, that means your pro right..." lame jokes, great food, great dives, great boat.
Dave at Diving In Depth has some great videos on his website about the trip.
Dave was my dive buddy for one of the drift dives.
I'm Alive...
Just got back from doing an extended trip where I was with Florida Fish and Wildlife on an research trip on the UG.
No internet of phone calls for 9 days.
Almost 16 Hours of time of time under water.
Tons of new reefs explored.
Almost filled up a 250 Gig of video and photos.
Got the OK to get into the off limits area of the Light House on Logger Head Key from the National Park Service and several hours at Fort Jefferson.
Oh, and I saw two Water Spouts yesterday morning.
"958 minutes of dive time in the Tortugas = 958 of F5 Wedge Time"
The destruction to the reef system, well, it was pretty bad on some of them.
Back Home later today and will post videos and photos tomorrow after I get off my sea legs. Everything is still swaying even though I'm sitting at the airport.
This boat freaking KICKS ASS. It is all about DIVING!!!
Glad to hear you had a great time! I know that someday I will do this trip. It is on my list of easily affordable dive trips to do.
EsoxLucius