The 2006 Bahamas Cruise

Day 3: Nassau, Bahamas

Wednesday, 29 Mar 06: Heather and I were both up and awake by 7:00 am.  We got up, got ready and headed to breakfast at the Windjammer around 8:00.  9:00, we disembarked the ship to walk around downtown before I had to meet Dale at 11:30 for our afternoon excursion.  We walked around downtown Nassau. To be honest, it wasn't anything impressive.. I guess after being in quite a few Caribbean tourist towns, they all start to look alike.  We walked the streets, bought a few souvenirs, took a few pictures, saw the Bahamian Prime Minster greet some dude outside his place of work and then just headed back to the ship around 10:30.  Heather was starting to feel tired, and she was over all the walking, so we just went back.
  11:15, I met Dale and we headed out to meet the bus for our excursion. This was the trip I had been waiting for since we booked the cruise.  We had an afternoon 2 tank dive scheduled with Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas.  Stuart Cove is the biggest dive operation in Nassau, and probably the Bahamas themselves..  He does a lot of the shark wrangling for movies, his pier was used in the movie "Flipper" that come out just a few years ago and he has dive site that were used in major motion pictures such as "Into the Blue," and 2 James Bond films, "Thunderball" and "Never Say Never Again."  Needless to say, I was really excited to dive with these people.  You have no say so on your dive sites, so you just hope for luck of the draw with currents, conditions and weather that day you go so you can get a site you want. Although, all his sites seem to rock, I was really interested in seeing the movies sites.  Didn't know if I would get to see one or either, but I was secretly hoping.  The bus was supposed to  meet us at 11:45.. About 12:15, it still wasn't there and we were about to call the shop to see if there was a mix up. Just then, the bus came around the corner.  We loaded up and settled in for the 40 minute ride to the pier.  After we arrived at Stuart Cove's, we unloaded from the bus and headed in the shop to pay for our rental gear and get some drinks for the afternoon.  The staff was very friendly and helpful.  They got us all squared away and sent us to the rental area where we got our equipment.  They had about 4 or 5 dive boats in the area, but our tickets had our vessel's name on it: Tursiops.  No idea what it means, but it sounded cool.  We took our equipment to the boat and the crew loaded it for us. We then went on the boat and they told us we could go ahead and hook everything up and test it all.  We did and all was a go. 
  We met our crew for the day. The boat Captain (Torju from Japan) and our Guide/Instructor (Erica from the UK).. We got our briefing and then headed out to the first dive site.  The first site was the deepest dive.  We were going to a "wall."  The area at the top of the wall was 60 feet deep. If you went over the edge of the wall, it was 6500 feet deep!!  We stopped at the site and Erica asked if anyone had seen the movie "Into the Blue."  My heart jumped!! We were at the DC-3 used in the movie. How awesome was that??!! The site I REALLY wanted to visit, we were there.  She said she would go down with us, tour us around the area, take us to the DC-3 and then let us mill about until our time was up.  Dale and I were buddied up with a guy named Mike that had no buddy.  We all checked each other's gear and then took turns doing our "giant stride" off the back of the boat.  The water was COLD!!  Well, it was enough to make you take some really quick breaths when you landed, but you got used to it very quick. I was also wearing a full 3mm suit for today's dives so that made it easier to deal with. After everyone was in and did their buoyancy tests, we all followed Erica around the area.  We saw a lot of coral and some fish.  We made our way over to the DC-3.  It didn't look anything like it did in the movie.  A hurricane had trashed it last year and it was torn up and strewn about a 100 yard area.  You could still tell it was an airplane, but it was one mangled up airplane.  Still, it was cool to see it.  After that, Erica took us over near the edge of the wall and she surfaced.  Dale, Mike and I were swimming along the edge when we saw a sea turtle below us. Dale went down to get a picture, but he didn't get it.  I was at about 80 feet and realized I wanted to get 100 feet on this dive.  So, I saw a ledge about 20 feet below and started to let me settle on that.  As I was nearing the ledge, I turned my gauges towards me to see my depth and, all of a sudden, air started shooting out of the bottom of my gauges.  I had blown an o-ring or a connection when I twisted to gauges to read them.  I did everything I could to stop the leak, but it wasn't happening.  I was able to press on it hard enough to bring the leak to a small bubbling, but I couldn't stop it.  I looked at the gauges and I was at 100 feet exactly.  So, I took my camera and took a picture of leaky gauges at 100 feet.  The other two looked at me and asked if I wanted to abort the dive.  I watched my air and it wasn't dropping fast, so I said, "No."  We'd keep diving and I'd just keep a real close eye on my air from that point on.  We only had about 15 minutes left anyway and I still had 1000 psi, so I should be good to go.  We finished our dive and headed up for our deco stop at 15 feet. I still had 500 psi left, so I had no problems.  After we finished our deco, we surfaced and boarded the boat. We spent right at 45 minutes underwater.  I told Erica I sprung a leak in my gauges and she said, "That's not good."  No shit.  She handed me a new set of equipment with a triumphant "Taa-Daa" and told me to use those.  I hooked them up and everything was a go for the second dive.
  We headed to the next dive site and after we stopped, Erica asked if anyone watched James Bond films.  Holy cow!! We are hitting both sites I wanted to see. That's just too cool.  This dive was at 50 feet and it had two wrecks.  It had the "Tears of Allah" ship used in "Never Say Never Again" and it had the skeleton of the Vulcan bomber used in Thunderball.  In "Never Say Never Again," Sean Connery is being chased by sharks around and inside a shipwreck.  That was the ship we were diving.  The "Vulcan" was not a real airplane, but a skeleton with a canvas covering and landing gear.  The canvas was long gone, but the skeleton and landing gear were still intact.   It looked more like an underwater "Jungle Gym" with airplane landing gear attached.  During our briefing on the boat, Erica said we could either giant stride off the back of the boat or we could roll off the sides. I had never rolled before and was interested in doing it.  Erica heard me talking to Dale about wanting to do it and she asked if I knew how.  I told her no, but I wanted to do it. She told me get geared up.  She said, "I'm an instructor and I haven't gotten to instruct today, so I will teach you how to do it."  She taught me how and I did my first boat roll exit.  It was cool. I was the only one on the boat that day to do one..   We dove both "wrecks" and saw everything there was to see on them. We didn't go in the "Tears" due to not being certified wreck divers, but we were all over the top, bottom and sides of that ship.  The only downfall of the whole trip was how little marine life there was to be seen.  Dale likes to get pictures of fish and I like seeing them too. There is only so much you can look at on a wreck, so the fish are the next best thing to watch. There were very few. But, we only had 40 minutes bottom time on this dive so we were done quickly anyway.  40 minutes down and then we went up to 15 feet for our deco stop.  We surfaced, got on the boat, waited for everyone else and then back to the docks.  It was great time!! We bought a couple t-shirts and then boarded the bus back to the Cruise Ship pier.
  We got back to the ship around 5:30 pm.  I rinsed off all my equipment, took a shower and then Heather and I went down to look at the pictures that were taken the night before in our "formal" attire.  We bought a few of those and then headed to dinner.  After dinner, we went back to the room. I was wiped out and she was tired, so we stayed in the rest of the night.  We missed the late night comedy show and the midnight buffet. Like I needed to eat any more anyway. :)

Days 4-5: At Sea / Port Canaveral

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