The Aquacat is one of Bruce Perdy's five liveaboards. It leaves from Paradise Island and travels through the northern Exumas for 6 days of diving. Our room was very comfortable featuring two large portholes, a King Size bed, plenty of closet space and a private bathroom with shower. My wife and I dove with the Aquacat July 12-19, 2003. 26 dives were available during the week. I made 24, skipping the dive on which I flooded my video camera and one dive for a land trip to swim with Lemon Sharks. We also had an interesting visit to Allen's Cay to visit friendly Iguanas. The Aquacat and Iguana pictures were taken by Bruce and Rondi Gordon. During the week, we dove Barracuda Shoals, Crab Mountain, Pillar Coral Reef, Fire Coral Reef, Wax Cut, Jeep Reef, Walled City, Amberjack Reef, a Blue Hole, Perriwinkle and many other spots in and out of the Exuma Cays. We dove shallow reefs. We dove deep walls. We flew along the Sea Floor on drift dives, and we ventured into a Blue Hole. We saw a huge variety of Sea Life; Corals, Sponges and Gorgonians of all sizes, Queen Parrotfish, Stoplight Parrotfish, Trumpetfish, Jawfish, Mahogony Snappers, Harlequin Bass, Queen Angelfish, Sailors Choice, Gray Angelfish, Balloonfish, many beautiful Scrawled Filefish, more Groupers than I've ever seen before, and Octopi on almost every night dive. At Crab Mountain, Dean spotted, and I caught on video, a beautiful Spotted Eagle Ray cruising off the wall at about 120 feet. On the third night, I had one of the most exhilarating and frightening experiences of my life. I've been with hundreds of Sharks over the years, but none like this. My wife insists that I shined my light too close to the eyes of a Caribbean Reef Shark. All of a sudden, he bent in half and shot at my abdomen like a bullet. I jerked backward, and he caught me just below my BC inside my right hip. It felt like a very hard punch. My wife watched for two seconds and then resumed her nighttime hunt for little creatures. We saw two huge Goliath Groupers, a very large Scrawled Filefish, many lobsters and a Spider Crab on a Sea Fan. The highlight of the dive, (other than my being attacked,) was playing with a beautiful baby octopus for about 10 minutes. It was a fantastic dive! The next morning, we hiked to the top of Exuma Cay and then snorkeled with two Lemon Sharks. At 11:15 we entered the water again at Amberjack Reef. Dean brought down a Chumsickle tying it eight feet above a mooring on a large coral head. Many Sharks were watching. I have been on nine other choreographed Shark Dives in the last eleven years. This was by far the best, both for the divers and the sharks. On the next dive, we returned again to Amberjack Reef and hung around with 7 or 8 Caribbean Reef Sharks and a dozen or so Huge Groupers and Goliath Fish for about an hour. It was fascinating. None of these huge denizens of the sea were at all afraid of the divers and allowed us to hang around very closely and swim with them. We did three drift dives during the week. On the first we flew along the seafloor and breakneck and watched Gavin running along the bottom. On the second we saw both a Nurse and a Reef Shark, Scrawled Filefish, a little Slender Filefish, and many Queen and Gray Angelfish. Night dives were incredible, featuring a whole family of little Hermit Crabs crawling all over each other, a Scorpionfish, Gray Angels, many sleeping Parrots and at least one Octopus on three of my four night dives. I have been on well over 500 dives and had only seen 4 or five Octopi over the years. We saw that many on this trip. I was also able to play with two of the Octopi, one for an extended period of time. Friday, before returning to Paradise island, we did two very interesting dives. The first was to a Blue Hole starting at 30 feet, going down to 220 feet, 50 feet in diameter at the surface coning down wider and wider under the sea. On emerging from the hole, I noticed fountains of air bubbles starting a few feet from the edge of the Blue Hole. I wonder if it was my own bubbles filtering through the ocean bottom. Our final dive was at Perriwinkle Reef, a 74 minutes safety stop surrounded by many beautiful creatures, a beautiful Yellow Stingray and many friendly groupers were following us, and hundreds of Sergeant Majors were everyone. Eventually they started nibbling on my bald spot and I said goodbye to life under the sea. The Crew was wonderful. Ron and Scott kept us, (for the most part,) on flat seas away from the storms that Yahoo said were all around us. Dean kept the Aquacat, the SeaDog and the Biscuit running and the electricity on, while feeding the Sharks, making sure my gear was connected and pointing out Spotted Eagle Rays. Gavin, Michele and Christine kept our equipment working, got us off and on the boat and pointed out the wonders of the Undersea World. Gavin's Undersea Moonwalking was especially entertaining. Dave managed to be the Cat's Clown and record the Cat's clowning all at the same time. It's not for nothing that he is called "Dave the Great." Caroline, the sous-chef did everything, and she did it well. Last, but certainly not least, was the piece de resistance of the trip, something I never expected on a Dive Boat, Chef-Extraordinaire Jim. He provided us with incredible gourmet meals all week. All his salad dressing were home made and the Blueberry Dressing was something special. The meals were Cordon Bleu quality, though Jim insisted that he learned, not in culinary school, but from his ma. The dinner desserts were amazing and served personally by Jim. The Aquacat truly provided a great week on the Sea.

Return to Fishies	dfssaaaaaaa	Published by
		Bob Klemow