My wife’s family had planned a cruise to the Bahamas a few months ago and even though we are close to signing the final paperwork on our house we decided to go along anyway.
It was a lot of fun, except that I would never recommend Norwegian Cruise Lines to anyone. As far as freestyle dining goes the idea is great but after having made my own stale bread burger for lunch three days in a row I decided it’s not for me, and neither are lazy Indonesian waiters who got a mandatory tip out of me (charged to my credit card no matter how hard they slammed down my plate of food in front of me).
Three nights, two and a half days and two full stops in the Bahamas. The first day was spent drinking and walking around the boat looking for drinks, and a little sunburning. That’s it.
The second day was the big one that I had been excited for, yet dreaded just a little. We stopped in Nassau early in the morning but woke up late because our transfer was only scheduled to pick us up at 11:45 am at the port.
After an hour in a bus listening to an expertly recited account of the history of the Bahamas (by Fred “not a tour guide” Rodriguez) we arrived at a seemingly famous dive outfit. Famous because the owner is an expert in his field of providing expert shots for many movies, including Jaws, a couple of James Bond’s and apparently a Salma Hayek visit.
So the deal was this, two dives, one boat and a South African photographer from Durban. The first dive was planned as just an orientation of sorts with a brief swim along a wall that disappeared very steeply into the dark of the ocean. We saw a number of sharks, especially during the initial decent as we approached a very baron area in the reef. They say about ten, I’m not sure, I was trying to breather under water for the first time in four years (three years officially so that they’d actually let me dive).
It was all very calm, though. I didn’t feel threatened at all as they kept their distance and really didn’t look that big (apparently ten feet at adult size).
The dive was relaxing and I managed to see two Lion Fish that had apparently visited all the way from Asia (a brief fist fight broke out on board about their region of origin).
We then had half an hour rest on the boat, which is always my favourite part of diving as I get to sit around and try not to throw up while staring at the horizon. (Two Dramamines didn’t help me much, but did make me tired).
The second dive was the feeding, where we were instructed to sit tight, keep our arms to ourselves and just watch the show. The feeder came down once we had all been given our positions with a metal bait box full of fresh, bloody fish. Within seconds, and I mean seconds the water was full of sharks (approximately 40 of them).
They didn’t care for us at all, or even Gary the fat Grouper who was chilling waiting for his own meal (which he got while being chased by three sharks).
The feeding was a little frantic and I was knocked on the face a few times by shark fins (no soup). They got really close but didn’t as much as look at me twice with their beady yellow eyes.
In short, dive with sharks at Stuart Cove’s, don’t use Norwegian Cruise Lines to get there.
Pictures below, scarier than it looks.
