Blackbeard's Cruise - Grand Bahama & Bimini
Blackbeard's Cruises have their base in Port Lucaya on Grand Bahama Island. We went for a week long live-aboard dive trip with the Morning Star, one of their three sailboats, to dive around Grand Bahama and the Bimini islands. The highlight of the trip was swimming freely with sharks at Shark Junction.
Being the last dive of the trip, we got to enjoy the underwater scenery in a small group, there were probably twice as many sharks as there were divers around us. Wonderful and inquisitive animals, never have we felt so at peace and relaxed under water as when were surrounded by lots and lots of about 2-meter long Caribbean reef sharks.
We had previously experienced the shark feeding dive, which was interesting and very professionally and safely executed by Blackbeard's superb team, and spotted about four nurse sharks in various spots over the course of the trip. One was hiding under a rock, as they often do, one was down where the mooring line approached the bow of a wreck. That one swam away calmly as we approached it during descent.
Another nurse shark spotting turned into a bit of a funny "underwater-chat" with my dive buddy. I signaled "moray eel in this cave" to her, and she replied "no, a shark is in this cave" - this went back and forth about three times until we realized there was a nurse shark resting right next to a massive green eel. I had no clue those animals would happily share a cave.
Overall, this trip was simply amazing. We were lucky to get one of the larger cabins for four as a couple, and the team, beginning with Captain Grayson Miller (III), awesome "Cookie" who kept us well-fed during the trip, dive-master Sarah's unforgettable dive briefings ("the pool's open!") and the other great guys on the boat ("Tiny-T"!) made sure everything was smooth sailing all the way. Let's not forget the lights-out-party at Bimini Breeze (pics not shown on the web, LOL!).
We can definitely recommend Blackbeard's Cruises and look forward to doing the Exumas tour at some point in the future!
- see more images of the trip here -
Watch our little 10 minute movie on YouTube (click the HQ button for better quality):
