Dive Sites: Hogfish, Metropolis, Miniwall, Fisht Tails, Jawfish Jigsaw, Shark Paradise, El Capitan, Sugar Wreck, El Dorado

Saturday: It’s great sunny weather, so we took the opportunity to leave the dock early. We departed before sunset and started cruising our way to Tiger Beach. While underway, we served our guests with chicken curry prepared by our Bahamian cook Empress. After dinner, we decided to watch the sunset and relax up on the sundeck. Everyone is a bit exhausted from air travel so we decided to retire early. The boat finally arrived at the anchorage on the banks around 10 pm, then Capt. Romel turned the engines off so we can sleep, rest and be ready for our first dive tomorrow.

Sunday: As the sun rose, we could still see the moon in the sky, with so few clouds and an ocean that was like glass, we knew it was going to be a beautiful day.  While we moved from our overnight mooring towards Hogfish Reef, Empress served a delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, and Belgium Waffles.  With a belly full of fuel and excitement, we did our dive safety briefing and our site briefing, then it was time for our first dive. With weights checked, everyone descended to a beautiful reef covered in flora and fauna. We did two wrecks on Hogfish Reef and had some beautiful Lemon sharks on both, along with French Angles, Rock Beauty, barracuda, a couple lionfish, and more.

With those dives under our weight belt, we motored on over to Tiger Beach and moored at Shark Paradise while everyone enjoyed a delicious lunch of chicken wraps and sweet potato fries. At 1:45, we did our Shark Paradise briefing and everyone got ready to go.  We had a bit of current but the sharks were plentiful. We had lemons swimming and laying on the bottom, with their usual entourage of remora, grinning for the cameras. Bahama grouper and Black grouper, almost as big as they ever get, swam around and gave us an excellent opportunity to take a closer look.

On our second dive, the sharks, lemons and black tipped reefs, showed us their fancy finning abilities and we showed them ours too.  Taking a swim over the top ridge of the reef, we were greeting by a beautiful postcard moment of a huge school of yellow tail snappers hovering over the reef below while we watched blue parrotfish making new sand. A little later we came across the biggest Rainbow parrotfishes! Four of them, making their way across and around, showing their colors for a striking visual. 

After all the beauty, excitement, and activity, everyone was ready for the delicious meal that Empress had ready.  BBQ pork chops, herbed potato wedges, and corn on the cob followed a fresh salad, ending with carrot cakes.  With full stomachs and visions of sharks, no one had any trouble falling asleep, ready for more diving tomorrow.

Monday: We started the day with a delicious breakfast made from the chef Empress: French toast, Eggs your Way, sausage links, avocado toast /w poached eggs. after that we jumped for our first dive at shark paradise where we saw Reef Shark, Lemon Shark, grouper and Snappers. after we jumped again at El Capitan for our dive 2 where we saw: soft coral, French angel fish, Reef shark, yellow tail, and Lemon Shark. After that our chef made us a Lunch: cracked chicken, tomato, feta salad and pasta salad. After lunch we jumped at EL Capitan for our dive 3 where we saw, Reef shark, and Snappers. after we jumped at sugar wreck for our dive 4 were we saw nurse shark, snapper, crabs and barracuda. after that our chef Empress made us a dinner:  meat loaf, mashed potatoes, glazed carrot and dessert ice cream sundae.

After that we jumped at the Sugar wreck for our night dive where we saw: turtles, Nurse Shark, Crabs, Snappers, , and Angel fish.

Tuesday: We went back to Shark Paradise to try our luck again with the tigers. Still no tiger sharks, but we had a great time with the reef and lemon sharks. The reef sharks started to come closer to our divers and even bumped one of us! We stayed here for 2 dives hoping to see Emma. With luck not favoring, we decided to move to El Dorado and look for some other stuff. And there it is, first jump on El Dorado and we saw this beautiful dancing juvy drumfish. So we decided to stay here and do a night dive. Spotted moray and stingray showed up at night hunting for food.

Wednesday: Out searching for the beautiful tiger sharks, we did our first dive before breakfast at Fishtails. Sharks and fish and other beautiful creatures helped give us an appetite for the delicious breakfast to come. Our hunger was satisfied with Empress’ wonderful breakfast of waffles, bacon or sausage, and eggs your way. A second dive at Fishtails to burn off the breakfast and we found great life for macro photos. This was followed by a lunch of meatball subs on fresh rolls with a colorful fresh salad on the side. Then it was on to Jawfish Jigsaw to see if we could find that special jawfish for our guests.  While we didn’t find a male with a mouthful of eggs, we did see jawfish, and angelfish, and a huge lemon shark! As a finale to an amazing day of diving, Chef prepared a delightful dinner of sesame summer veggie soup followed by pork picatta and chicken parmesan accompanied by angel hair pasta and finished dinner with a strawberry cheesecake.  It was a night where everyone was quickly off to dream of our adventures, fully satisfied.

Thursday: With a beautiful dive at Metropolis starting the day, we dived with the reef and lemon sharks again. The grouper were out in force and look like they could inhale an arm, if they actually cared about us being there.  We returned to the boat and a delicious breakfast of fresh omelets to order and your choice of bacon or sausage. After a second dive at Metropolis, we relocated to Mini-Wall and had a veggie fold-overs, fish wraps, and hot French fries. Empress is making sure no one goes hungry this week. Our two dives at Mini-Wall were definitely a crowd pleaser, with the find of many yellow-headed jawfish! We closed the day with a dinner of veggie soup, sesame chick stir fry with rice, and a lemon rum cake. The sunset following lit up the sky with beautiful hues of orange and red, it was a sight to behold.

Friday: We We started the day with a delicious breakfast made from the chef Empress: fruit and yogurt bowls, silver dollar pancakes, sausage, eggs your way. after that we jumped for our first dive at hogfish reef where we saw Reef Shark, Lemon Shark, grouper and Snappers. after we jumped again at hogfish reef for our dive 2 where we saw: soft coral, French angel fish, Reef shark, yellow tail, and Lemon Shark. After that our chef made us a Lunch: club sandwiches, soup.

Congratulations to our Iron Divers! Todd, Taryn, Paul, Alex, Adam, and Lloyd!

…And Lloyd received an Aggressor Addict award for having more than 10 trips with the Aggressor!

We would also like to congratulate our new Nitrox Divers! Tayrin, Lisa, and Adam