Spring of 2012

We invite you to join us on our annual spring group dive trip. Economic times are still hard for some of you, so once again as we did for our recent fall group trip, we have searched out a destination that allows you to have the most fun and adventure possible for under $200 per day, per person including airfare.

Our destination is the city of Nassau on New Providence Island in the Bahamas. Our hotel will be the fabulous Sheraton Nassau Beach Hotel http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=3067 .The hotel is located right on Nassau's famous Cable Beach. This location puts you on the beach at a first class hotel in a high-class district with Casinos and Golfing in walking distance and the downtown shopping and excitement of Nassau a short ride away.

Our dive provider is world famous Stuart Cove who operates 1 of the most successful dive operations anywhere in the world http://www.stuartcove.com/ . If you have not been to Nassau with us before, diving Nassau on the Southside of the island where Stuart is located truly is world class. The water is very clear with colorful reefs, walls and a few nice wrecks all with abundant marine life. He'll supply transfers from our hotel to his facility and back again. He'll also supply tanks and weights for your dives. Rental gear is additional for those who need it. We'll do a 2-tank morning dive Sunday and we'll do his World Famous High Energy Shark Encounter Dive Monday afternoon. Everyone bring your cameras for this 1!!

We'll depart Ft Lauderdale on Saturday the 5th of May and return Tuesday the 8th. The airport transfers, hotel and diving is ONLY $589 per person double occupancy. Not included in the $589 are Airfare, food, drinks, souvenirs, and Bahamian departure taxes.

I have found excellent airfares for as little as $196 roundtrip on Spirit Air http://www.spirit.com/Default.aspx .

We have only 12 spaces to fill. To be considered you must reply or call 239-872-6295 by Monday February 13th. There will be a $250 non-refundable deposit to hold your space and you can make payments on your balance if you want, but your balance would be due 45 days from departure.

We look forward to fun and adventure with you.

Fall of 2012

I want to invite you to join us on our next Seahorse Scuba organized and supervised group dive trip. The location will be in the Bahamas on the small, sparsely populated, and remote island of Rum Cay. The island is so remote and unspoiled it is hard to find web info, but this page seems to have the most info and links http://www.rumcaygreen.com/   Our resort on Rum Cay will be a new resort that is not yet opened, but is scheduled to open in the spring of or summer of 2012. 

I chose this destination after a long conversation with Neal Watson

( http://www.nealwatson.com/MeetNealWatson.html ) during our annual fall group dive trip, which this year was to Bimini Bahamas. Hopefully what excited me about this new destination will excite you also, so let me explain. Rum Cay is so far down the Bahamas Island chain that it is usually visited only by boaters cruising the islands, therefore the beautiful reefs and walls are rarely seen, in pristine condition and have not even been fully explored. Also, because the year round population is only in the low hundreds the reefs and walls are alive with life.

According to Neal the resort will be small, yet full service, accommodating about 12 divers and non-divers. This means we will have the resort to ourselves for our stay. Neal says, you tell us when you want your meals, when you want to dive, kind of like a land based live-aboard, only if you want a beer with your lunch you won’t get penalized and not be allowed to do the next dive.

So if vacationing on a small, remote island that has beaches with NO FOOT PRINTS at a new almost private, full service resort, surrounded by crystal clear warm water that has pristine rarely dived reefs and walls sounds as good to you as to me please reply and I will forward all info when it is made available be the vendor.

A review of our Tobago, May 2nd 2009 group dive trip.

Speyside beach across from Manta Lodge.

Tobago is located off the coast of Venezuela, South America. It is easy to get to through Miami. American Airlines flies non-stop to Port of Spain Trinidad and then you'll connect to Caribbean Air for a short 20 minute flight to Tobago. The island is truly beautiful, mountainous and green, very similar to Dominica and or Grenada. Tobago is a quiet rural island, except for the Crown Point area where the airport is located. We were there for diving, but Tobago is famous for bird watching, waterfalls and it's rainforest.

 Since we are scuba divers, we located ourselves in Speyside, a very quiet fishing village on the windward North Atlantic ocean coast. Speyside offers the best diving on Tobago. However aficionados of Scotch whisky should not let the name Speyside excite them, this is definitely rum country.  The reefs are located, just a few minutes off shore and the waters are protected from the winds by barrier islands. Our home base was The Manta Lodge which sits just across the road from the beach and the ocean. Although all our rooms were slightly different each had a balcony with an ocean view. The air conditioned rooms were neat and comfortable. A buffet breakfast was included each morning and lunch and dinner was available. There is also a bar beside the pool.

 I found the food to be less expensive and of better quality at some of the local village restaurants. If you can do without alcohol with your meal, I would suggest Jemma's Tree House for lunch or dinner. Also stop by The Blue Waters Inn for lunch and dinner or The Bird Watcher Restaurant for dinner. All these restaurants are with in walking distance of the Manta Lodge. Another choice would be The Speyside Inn which also offers lodging as does The Blue Waters Inn.  The reefs were very healthy, however there were not many fish. We had some poor VIZ (15 to 20 feet) on a couple of dives and no Manta Rays (the reason for our trip), but that's the way it goes sometimes in this sport.

 All in all a good trip. I mean, how can you not have fun with a group like ours. If I were to go again I might stay at the Manta Lodge, however I would not use their dive operation again. If you could arrange daily charters with Marvin (Captain) and Andre (Dive Master) you would be well taken care of. I would recommend that you take a trip to Tobago and also to go while our dollar is still worth 6 of theirs. Go enjoy Tobago and while you're there have a Mackeson Stout (about $1.50) an order of Curried Goat from Jemma's, say hello to Cactus at The Manta Lodge dive shop and his sister at Jemma's, they are 2 of the nicest people you'll ever meet and then open your copy of 1000 Places To See Before You Die and cross off page # 890. 

A review of our July 3rd 2008 Bimini Bahamas group dive trip.

Bill and Diana with Bill and Nowdla Keefe

Bimini Bahamas was the first out of the country group dive trip destination, way back in 1990, that was organized by Seahorse Scuba. To us it is a special, sentimental destination. Many great memories of underwater and above water fun. This trip was no different then all the others to Bimini. It just seems to have this magical power that allows everyone to forget their worries and relax and have a good time with their dive buddies. This trip we stayed at the Bimini Big Game Club the islands best known resort, since the Compleat Angler Hotel is no more. Our rooms all had balconies over looking the pool and gardens, there are 2 restaurants and 3 bars on the property, along with the dive shop, Bill and Nowdla Keefe's Bimini Undersea. 

Bill and Nowdla Keefe have been operating a scuba facility on Bimini since the mid 1980's. You just don't stay in business that long by doing things wrong. This is 1 of the best dive operations in the world. Go see them, you'll be happy you did, and tell them we said hi. The diving is easy and fun. We saw sharks, even a Hammerhead, plenty of turtles, eels and schooling tropicals. Let them run you south of Bimini to some of the best reef diving you'll find anywhere in the world. Hey, don't forget to leave time for Nowdla's wild dolphin encounter and maybe a trip to the Atlantis road and or Ponce De Leon's fountain of youth.

The only problem we had was getting there. When you go I would suggest spending a little extra money on your airline ticket and fly Continental. Stay away from Bimini Island Air. We were scheduled to leave Ft. Lauderdale at 8:30am and didn't even board a plane until 2:45pm. Stuff happens when you travel, especially as much as we do, but I found out that they just over booked their plane with a charter flight from Atlanta to Nassau when we were supposed to be flying to Bimini. Everyone has to make money, but, and here's the kicker, all they had to do was be honest and tell us we wouldn't even have a plane to board until possibly 2pm and we could have all went into town had lunch maybe a few cocktails, after all we are on vacation, but NO they wouldn't come clean with the truth and we all had to just sit in the terminal asking, is time to board yet? I was going to use them in November to get us all to Green Turtle Cay, but I'll never use them again.

Go enjoy Bimini, oh and while you're there have a Kalik Gold and an order of Conch Fritters for us. Then open your copy of 1000 Places To See Before You Die and cross off page # 856.

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