Northwestern Bahamas Guest Review

GUEST REVIEW

Like most divers, I had seen the ads for the Nekton Pilot in various scuba magazines. You know the boat I’m talking about… that funny one that looks like a 3-story houseboat floating on top of two submarine-like pontoons. I’d seen it parked at the docks in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and read some nice reviews in the various magazines. So I went to their website to learn more about their operation and made my plans to join them for a seven-day dive excursion into the Bahamas. Our planned itinerary was to cross the Gulf Stream Saturday night for the reefs along the western side of Grand Bahama Island, working south across the Gingerbread Grounds for Bimini before returning to Ft. Lauderdale the following Saturday morning.

Shortly after registering for my trip via the web, I received a nice package of materials in the mail which answered most all of my questions. The boat left on Saturday evening from Ft. Lauderdale and returned the following Saturday morning. Since I live in Ft, Lauderdale, the staff told me to park my car in long-term parking at the airport, and they’d swing by in their courtesy shuttle and pick me up, along with other people that had flown or drove into the area.

Saturday, DAY 1 The boat was booked full, which meant a total of 32 passengers and 12 staff. The staff met the courtesy van by the docks and whisked our luggage right up to the cabins while we were all ushered into the salon to meet our fellow passengers. As was the case all week, Chef Evan had set out a variety of juices, tea, coffee and snacks for everyone to enjoy. We were told to settle in, relax, unpack, and then re-assemble on the top deck for a boat briefing and safety drill.

Our cabin was on the lower level, amid-ships on the starboard side. The room was quite spacious with a Queen-sized bed; a small closet with shelves for your clothes; a vanity with a sink, mirror, and electrical outlets; a private bathroom with a marine toilet and shower; private air conditioning controls and a speaker for the onboard announcement system; oodles of hooks in the walls of the cabin and bathroom to hang up damp clothing; and three large windows looking out at the water. After stacking t-shirts, shorts and bathing suits on the shelves, we pushed our soft-side luggage under the bed and headed topside for the briefing.

Jon was our unofficial “Master of Ceremonies” for the week. He is a very personable guy that has worked on the boat for about six years as a divemaster/instructor, assistant engineer, captain-in-training, and resident marine biology expert. As the boat pulled away from the docks, Jon gave us an overview of the boat’s layout, told us about the week’s planned itinerary and the daily routine, and then introduced us to each member of the crew. After a quick run to our cabins for our life preservers we scampered back to the sundeck for the lifeboat drill. Then it was back to the salon to complete all of our diving liability, and Customs & Immigration paperwork, and mingle with the other guests.

The boat is laid out very logically with the wheelhouse on the forward end of the top deck spanning nearly the entire width of the ship. There are two satellite steering stations just outside the wheelhouse, and the Captain uses these positions to move the boat in for mooring at the dive sites or at the dock. Behind the wheelhouse is a large tarp-covered area with plastic tables and chairs where we held all of our dive briefings. Against the back of the wheelhouse are numbered bins corresponding to your cabin number. These cubbyholes are large enough to hold booties, log books, sunglasses and suntan lotion. There were heavy plastic hangers rigged along the supporting pole of the tarp to dry your wetsuits, towels, etc. Behind the tarp was a large, open sundeck (I’d guess about 2000 sq. feet) with chaise lounges and a Jacuzzi.

On the middle deck was the dining area, the galley, and a comfortable salon with wrap-around couches. There were two TV’s rigged with VCR’s, a light table for the photographers on board, and a well-stocked lending library of paperback books and videos. Several guest cabins were forward of the galley. Out on the back deck were two large tables for photographic equipment, a cooler for guest beverages, and another marine toilet.

On the lower deck were the remainder of the guest cabins (16 in all), the crew’s quarters (I counted 6 cabins), the E6 photo processing lab, and the entrance to Engineering. The lower level also held the dive platform, which we were to learn about on the Sunday morning dive briefing.

This three-story ship is roughly 80 feet long and 40 feet wide, and it sits atop the two pontoons, which stretch the length of the vessel. Jon explained that this SWATH (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull) technology is used on the floating oil platforms in the North Sea and it provides a more-stable ride through the water since the pontoons can be flooded with water to ride below the surface, unlike a catamaran which skims across the top of the waves. Sure enough, we found the ride to be quite smooth even when crossing the typically rough Gulf Stream on Saturday night. The ship has an unusual lumbering, rolling-motion, unlike a conventional boat, but once we got used to the slow roll we quickly found our “sea legs”.

Sunday, DAY 2 Jon’s cheery voice greeted us bright and early Sunday morning, “Good morning Nekton divers… breakfast is now being served in the galley and then we’ll have a dive briefing on the sundeck”. Chef Evan had prepared scrambled eggs, bacon, and oatmeal with a variety of juices, fruits, and breads. We later learned Evan was not the regular chef for the Nekton Pilot, but rather a crewmember with an extensive catering background that was pressed into service while the regular chef was on her vacation. We thought his cooking was wonderful, and enjoyed chatting with him in the evenings.

In our first dive briefing, Jon explained that each diver was assigned one tank (a steel 95 pressurized to a minimum of 2400 psi) and that out BC would remain hooked to that tank all week. The tanks were arranged on four benches on the dive deck, and your cabin number marked your space. This configuration allowed you and your buddy to be seated side-by-side. Under the bench was a storage area for your fins, dive lights, weight belts, etc. Once your gear was set up on the tank you never needed to break it down until the end of the week. The steel 95’s are slightly negative, so many of the divers dropped extra weight off their belts to compensate for the change in buoyancy. By the 2^nd day of diving I was using 4 pounds of lead in my BC.

The dive deck actually hangs suspended from the back of the boat and is lowered into the water level by hydraulic lifts. Before stepping onto the dive platform, you marked a large wipe-off board showing your time out, and upon your return you marked your time back and the maximum depth of your dive. The dive deck was generally open in the mornings following the dive briefing from about 8am till 11:45, and then again following the afternoon dive briefing till about 5:45pm. The dive deck re-opened every night after dinner. Depending on the boat’s schedule, we would generally move the boat while having lunch and then stay fixed on the second site until after Midnight. That easily gave every diver the ability to do up to five dives a day with comfortable surface intervals in between. Hot fresh-water showers and dry towels were waiting next to the wipe-off board at the completion of your dive.

Entry to the water was easy… Divers had a choice of either walking down a few steps on a center staircase to the water level, or making a giant stride entry off either end of the dive platform. Since the dive deck was arranged with about 10 divers per bench, we never felt crowded while gearing up or getting into the water. If you looked down from the sun deck and saw that the dive deck was full, you simply read another chapter in your book and then walked down. As you return to the boat, you climbed up the center stairs and the crew assisted you back to your spot on the bench. After you shut off your air and removed your first stage, the crew would attach an air whip and fill your tank back up for the next dive. Nothing could have been simpler.

When the boat was on a dive site the crew hooked a line to the permanent mooring ball, and ran a “granny line” around the port side of the boat. There was usually a 25 foot weighted descent line off the stern along with a 100-foot tagline with a float ball. The boat was rigged with a fixed hang bar 15 feet below the stern, and the crew lowered an extra tank with spare regulators to the 15-foot level as well. There were always several Divemaster/crewmembers on the dive deck, as well as another Divemaster on the sundeck watching for bubbles. There was also a small-motorized chase boat standing by in case a diver got caught in a current and couldn’t get back to the boat.

Our first dive was on Indian Key Reef, which was a nice 60-foot site with a grouping of large coral heads over white sand. It was the perfect spot to “shake the dust” off your diving skills while be entertained by the abundance of Caribbean tropicals cruising the reef. We were back on board with plenty of time for a shower and a fresh bathing suit before Evan set out a lunch of chicken Caesar salad, pasta salad, tuna salad, chicken and rice soup, etc, etc, etc. While we filled out our logbooks and curled up with the first of many paperbacks, the boat moved to our second site of the day.

Scoto’s Reef was a slightly deeper site with a spur-n-groove style reef and several sand chutes. I spotted the first of many Scorpionfish on this dive, and felt like the Pied Piper leading a pack of tropicals from coral head to coral head.

Dinner that evening was a fabulous Prime Rib, baked potatoes with all the trimmings, broccoli, mushrooms, tossed salad, and homemade cheesecake. (Wow, Evan was whipping out some incredible meals!!! Leave your diets at home for the week.)

I had elected to participate in a DAN study on diver safety (called Project Dive Exploration) during the week. Jon gave me an additional computer to strap to my BC, and each night we met in the salon after dinner to fill out some paperwork detailing your dive profiles for the day, what type of exposure protection were you wearing, your level of exertion while diving, etc. He also collected information on your diving experience, medical history, etc. At the end of the week Jon downloaded my dive profiles from the computer and submitted the entire collection of data to DAN.

That evening Jon gave a terrific slide show on coral reef ecology, with a layman’s guide to coral identification. It gave everyone a much greater appreciation for the delicate balance of life in the oceans and certainly set the stage for our night dive back on Scoto’s Reef.

Monday, DAY 3 By now we had comfortably settled into the daily routine, and this morning’s breakfast was pancakes, sausages, oatmeal, fruit, breads and juices. After the dive briefing, we hopped in the water and enjoyed a deep wall drop-off dive on Mt. Olympus. Several guests were shooting slides and videos on this trip, and the conditions for photography were wonderful. Water temperatures were in the low to mid 80s, visibility ranged from 30 feet to over 100 feet, and surprisingly, Mother Nature held back on the rain showers for much of the trip.

After our lunch of hamburgers & hotdogs, I toured the wheelhouse and met Captain Steve. Propulsion for the Nekton Pilot comes from two large 850 Kilowatt diesel engines located down in the pontoons. This isolates the rest of the ship from the noise and vibration, and gives everyone a little extra “elbow room”. Each pontoon has six separate chambers that can be flooded with water and trimmed for stability. Steve explained that the Nekton typically cruised in a “bow up” position providing for a smoother ride, and allowing the plumbing system to work at peak efficiency. The Nekton travels at a relatively slow speed of seven knots, so the travel time was isolated to lunch hours and after Midnight to lessen the impact on dive time. The ship has an impressive array of modern navigational and communications instrumentation including a side-scanning SONAR; dual D-GPS navigation; RADAR; global Inmarsat satellite phone; traditional fax; weather fax – both text and charts; Internet Email via LEO satellites; SSB short-waves and VHF radios; and cellular telephones. The Nekton is also fully stocked with all necessary US Coast Guard safety equipment, and dive safety equipment required for a live-aboard vessel.

Unfortunately my tour of the wheelhouse was cut short, and we soon learned that one of our fellow divers was complaining of a tingling sensation in his back and extremities following the afternoon dive. The crew provided Oxygen to the diver, and after a conversation with DAN, Captain Steve aborted our afternoon trip to the Sugar Wreck and turned the Nekton towards Freeport on the west end of Grand Bahama. Captain Steve then addressed the passengers, explained the situation, and said that he’d put us back on Indian Cay Reef for a night dive. The diver and his wife were transported by skiff to the hospital in Freeport, and later airlifted back to Miami for recompression treatments. Once again, I was reminded of the importance of my membership with DAN, and the value of the diving insurance that I carry each year.

That afternoon I toured Evan’s galley and learned a bit about meal preparation for 40 people on a live-aboard. The meals are carefully scripted for the week, food is purchased in bulk, delivered to the docks in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturdays, and then labeled and packed away in several large coolers, freezers, and storage areas scattered about the ship. Evan explained how he tried to plan a non-meat alternative for every meal to accommodate a variety of dietary needs. I learned that Evan was formerly a stockbroker, and later a caterer, turned dive instructor.

Dinner that evening was baked Orange Roughy, black beans & rice, corn, tossed salad, and a sheet cake for dessert. After another excellent slide show in the salon (this time on Reef Creatures), we suited up and cruised along Indian Cay Reef spotting two octopi, and numerous lobsters, crabs, and critters.

Tuesday, DAY 4 Breakfast was biscuits & gravy, grits, oatmeal, fruits, breads, and juices. During our dive briefing we learned that the diver was feeling better after some chamber treatments in Miami’s Mercy Hospital. Our dive site this morning was Theo’s Wreck – a 280-foot freighter lying on her port side in 100 feet. The wreck had broken apart over the years, and there were numerous opportunities to penetrate the hold and the engine room.

Lunch was BLT’s with Clam Chowder, Egg Salad, and chips. The afternoon dive was the highlight of the trip for me – we had moored at a spot known as Shark Junction. The Divemasters from UNEXSO and Xanadu Dive Centers have been hand-feeding the sharks in this area three times a day for numerous years, so the animals had been conditioned to accept divers swimming with them. As luck would have it, we hit the water about 30 minutes before the Xanadu boat pulled up on the site, so our group was able to swim with the sharks without the distraction of food in the water. During our dive we watched about a dozen black-tip reef sharks ranging from 6 to 10 feet in length swimming along side us and circling out in the sand in front of us. I was sad to call this dive quits, but quite delighted to see a free-swimming spotted eagle ray and a large hawksbill turtle on my return to the boat.

Evan treated us to a real American Thanksgiving dinner with roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cooked cauliflower, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. After we waddled into the salon, we watched another slide show on Fish Identification. The crew had taken the time to use a lot of their own slides in the nightly briefings, and really put a lot of work into the presentations. Back in the water for a night dive at Shark Junction, but this time we explored the spur-n-groove reef structure and put our fish identification skills to the test. The sharks had drifted into deep water for the night, so we were left to chase the eels, lobsters and crabs.

Wednesday, DAY 5 We enjoyed French toast, sausage patties, oatmeal, cereal, fruits, and breads for breakfast and then headed up to the sundeck for our dive site briefing on Rocky Mountain High. During the night we had moved to the Gingerbread Grounds, which is a shallow water area just north and east of Bimini. This dive site featured large coral heads rising to within 25 feet of the surface and covered with soft corals, sponges, sea fans, pinecone, bristlebrush, and cup algae, and thousands of schooling tropicals. There was a nice patch of turtle grass nearby, and we searched in vain for a seahorse.

Lunch was Taco Shells & Flour Tortillas with spicy ground beef, grilled chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, salsa, guacamole, cheese, and tortilla soup. Ole’!!! Then it was back in the water for a dive on the Wreck of the Hesperus, which was a shallow-water site of an old wreck surrounded by turtle grass. The site was like a mini version of Stingray City with dozens of Southern stingrays out in the grass, and an abundance of grunts and snappers. After drying off, a group of us asked for a tour of Engineering. Todd led us down to his work area and showed us the massive 120Volt/60Hz redundant diesel engines that deliver power throughout the ship. We also saw the Nekton’s icemaker; a unique high capacity desalinator to provide onboard fresh water; and the dual redundant high capacity Mako 2-stage air compressors which can either be directed straight to the air banks on the dive platform, or to the storage cylinders. Then Todd led us down a ladder about 15 feet into the aft-section of the pontoon so we could see one of the twin Caterpillar 3412 1200 HP diesel engines and the straight shaft aft to the propeller.

After that grueling afternoon, it was time to crack the cover on another paperback and rest up before our dinner of Fettuccine with either traditional Alfredo sauce, or marinara sauce, shrimp spiced with Old Bay seasoning, garlic shrimp, tossed salad, garlic bread, and Italian pastries. (By now my dinner companions and I were making plans to shanghai Chef Evan and take him home to cook for us…)

This evening’s slide show was called “Turtle Talk”, and Jon took the time to educate us on the plight of the sea turtles – explaining how they’d become endangered species and what divers can do to support the conservation efforts. We learned how to differentiate between the types of sea turtles, and also learned a lot about their fascinating cycle of life. All of this was the perfect lead-in to our night dive on the Wreck of the Hesperus, because the site has become the nightly resting place for about a dozen 2-300 pound loggerhead turtles. I was able to lay in the sand right next to a loggerhead, nearly eyeball-to-eyeball, and watch him as he rested and then lifted up to the surface for a breath of air. Each turtle had picked up a few hitchhiking remoras that were busy cleaning the parasites off their shells. The Southern stingrays were back in force along with the grunts and snappers.

Thursday, DAY 6 Evan made a breakfast casserole with hash browns, onions and green peppers topped with a fried egg, along with the usual cereals, breads and fruits. Our morning dive was located along Tuna Alley between Gun Cay and Cat Cay. The site is a mini-wall with some noticeable thermoclines (ten degrees or more…Brrrr!!!). We saw schools of Horse-eyed Jacks, snook, and tarpon, along with pufferfish, trunkfish and trumpetfish.

Lunch was a cold-cut hoagie or a meatball sub, Chili Mac, and cheese doodles. We hopped back in the water that afternoon for a dive at Victory Reef. This was the only site where we experienced any significant current for the week, but the fish were plentiful so we didn’t feel the effects until we were hanging on the safety bar.

Dinner was another “Evan Special”: Roast pork with baby potatoes, carrots, tossed salad, rolls, and an apricot pastry for dessert. After dinner we all gathered in the salon to watch the Staff Video that had been videoed and edited by Stacey, Ben and Jon. The video had some terrific underwater footage, plus a lot of the topside antics that gave everyone a good laugh. After that we were back in the water for a night dive on Victory Reef with a good turnout of lobsters, a green moray eel, big black spiny urchins, a small octopus, and a free-swimming 7’ nurse shark.

I sat up in the salon that evening and talked with Jon about life aboard the Nekton, and learned about some of their other itineraries. Jon is local south Florida guy who will soon be captaining the Nekton Pilot when she permanently moves south to cover their Belize and Honduras routes. (Later this summer they’ll break a bottle of champagne across the bow of the new Nekton Rorqual and the Rorqual will handle the Bahamas routes.) Jon has a background as a chemist and clearly has studied a lot of marine biology. He’s worked on the Nekton nearly six years and has worn a number of hats during that time.

About Midnight I heard some shouting outside my cabin windows and headed upstairs to see what the commotion was about. It turns out that a group of divers on a private boat from Pompano Beach, FL had decided to take a night dive on Victory Reef. Unfortunately their boat slipped it’s mooring while they were in the water, and these folks had neglected to leave anyone on board while they were diving. (Duhhhhh) The Captain of their boat had swam to the stern of the Nekton and was busy hollering for help while the other four divers were clutching the mooring ball where their boat used to be tied. After taking precautions to be sure this was a legitimate emergency, Captain Steve moved the Nekton to the stranded divers allowing them to climb onto the swim platform. Then he drove the Nekton down current to the drifting boat and let the other Captain swim to his boat and eventually collect his remaining divers. The crowd up on the sundeck all agreed that there would be a very “spirited” conversation about diver safety aboard the other boat since those divers had been adrift for several hours

Friday, DAY 7 Breakfast was scrambled eggs, ham, oatmeal, cereals, fruits and breads. Our dive site this morning was called Thumbnail and it was a huge coral mound rising up from the sea bottom to within 80 feet of the surface. We saw green morays, and spotted morays, another free-swimming loggerhead turtle, triggerfish, Nassau groupers, hinds, spadefish, angelfish and parrotfish all over the place, and the usual collection of wrasses, hamlets and basslets. Quite a spectacular site!

For lunch we had Lasagna both with regular ground beef, and a second tray made with spinach and garlic, garlic bread and tossed salad. The boat moved right off shore of North Bimini and we dove a site known as The Strip, which was three large coral heads in about 40 feet of water. This site reminded me of diving into an aquarium with every imaginable tropical swimming right up into your face, along with those adorable Sergeant Majors and Damselfish that felt the need to nip at anything that got too close to their section of the reef. After a shower we hopped aboard the skiff for a quick trip into Alice Towne to see the Complete Angler (Hemmingway’s favorite hangout), the Bimini Big Game Fishing Club (another famous haunt of his), the legendary End of the World Bar (where else can you find autographed underwear of every color and size stapled to the ceiling of a bar?), and the usual collection of third-world t-shirt stores and gift shops.

We scurried back to the boat and settled up the bill with Stacey, Nekton’s purser. She had a collection of logo’d merchandise including t-shirts, polo shirts, sweatshirts, shorts, hats, and mugs, along with copies of the staff video. We gave Stacy a copy of our guest questionnaire and an envelope containing our tip for the staff (about 10-15% of your total package cost is recommended). For dinner, Evan had whipped up barbequed ribs and chicken along with scalloped potatoes, tossed salad and a chocolate brownie/ice cream sundae, which drew a round of applause from everyone on board.

Then it was back into the water for our final dive of this trip on The Strip. The tropicals were still out in force, along with numerous eels, lobsters, and a rare encounter with a Slipper Lobster.

That evening we gathered in the salon for the guest slide show. As mentioned previously we had numerous amateur photographers and videographers on board, and this was their chance to show off their work. The passengers selected a terrific slide of a loggerhead turtle with remoras (aptly titled, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my remora”) as the winning shot for the week.

Saturday, DAY 8 Sadly all things must come to an end, and when we woke up Saturday morning the Nekton was docking at the pier in Ft. Lauderdale. After a quick breakfast in the salon we were checked back into the country by Customs and Immigration. Once again the crew had our baggage tagged and moved down onto the pier to be loaded into the waiting vans. We said our goodbyes to our fellow passengers and crewmembers – many who had become our friends during this trip. John Dixon, Nekton’s owner, had made a point to drive down to the dock and thank everyone for choosing Nekton for his or her vacation. He spoke with each of us individually and asked our impressions of the trip, the staff and the ship. I found that little extra touch to be the type of thing that sets Nekton Diving Cruises apart from their competition. John said about 30-40% of their guests are repeat customers, and with his attention to detail it’s easy to see why.

General Observations and Comments From my conversations around the dinner table, I heard people say they averaged between 15 and 25 dives for the week, and I was about in the middle of that range. A week on the boat cost me just under $1700, and when you factor in the crew tip, the dive video and the souvenirs it totaled about $2000. I had no additional travel expenses since I live in Ft. Lauderdale.

The Nekton has a very liberal dive policy, in effect saying that you may dive as much as you want, as often as you want, so long as you stay within the respected safety guidelines of your training organization.

Nekton also has a very intelligent policy concerning the use of alcohol on their ship. You are welcome to bring aboard beer, wine, and alcohol for your personal consumption; HOWEVER, your first drink of the day also signifies that you are done diving for the day. The ship is stocked with numerous fruit juices, iced tea, lemonade, water, coffee, hot tea, and hot chocolate, which are all free of charge. If you’re like me and just can’t live without your Diet Coke, you’ll need to bring it with you. The courtesy vans will make a stop at a convenience/liquor store prior to you boarding the boat on Saturday afternoon, so you can stock up before you leave the dock.

I found the dive vacation to be very relaxing and very enjoyable. The entire staff was terrific, and my fellow guests were a pleasure. The dive sites were widely varied and I felt there was something for everyone, regardless of your diving experience. I will be booking another trip on the Nekton next year – either to Belize, or to the Southern Bahamas.