Best Budget Liveaboard Trip: Blackbeard's Cruises' Bahamas
Morning Star is one of two Blackbeard’s boats.
Greg Locoeur
“Budget cruise” is a phrase with all the appeal of day-old sushi. Unless you’re talking about Blackbeard’s Cruises; that’s a trip of a different stripe: What you’ll experience might best be called boat camping, in 18 dorm-style bunks that line the boats from bow to midships.
There’s another huge Blackbeard’s difference besides the price, which is less than half what you could pay for this Exumas and Eleuthera itinerary: Sea Explorer and Morning Star are sailboats, 55-ton, 65-foot sloops built especially for diving. Although most of the weeklong itineraries are executed under motor, you really do get a chance to get those sails up, and to help the crew with the task if you are of a mind. (Which provides considerable amusement for those divers who elect just to watch.) When the motor stops and the wind takes over it’s an unforgettable feeling, one that puts you as close to the elements as it’s possible to be.
The famous swimming pigs of Big Major Cay.
Blue Orange Studio / Alamy
That’s not to say there are no creature comforts on this affordable ride. The air-conditioning blasting through makes it surprisingly comfortable belowdecks, though few spend much time there when paradise is sliding by up top. And self-service is rarely so sweet as on a Blackbeard’s boat when divers gather at the end of the day around the permanent beer tap on deck or when one of the crew begins to mix up the rum punch that flows nightly, all covered by your cruise ticket. You won’t go hungry, with savory home-cooked meals such as lasagna, pot roast, pork chops in gravy, and possibly the best macaroni and cheese of your life.
There’s nothing cut-rate about the diving, either. Blackbeard’s plies sites in the northern Exumas, in an area that reaches from just off Nassau to the foot of Eleuthera, on the opposite side of Exuma Sound. The sites offer classic Bahamian diving: clear blue waters where living-room-size coral heads big enough to house multiple swim-throughs and even small caverns loom over quartz-white sands. At sites like Lobster, No Lobster on the west side of the Exumas, small coral heads are arrayed on the sand like flower petals, each one a tiny cleaning station.
A Caribbean reef shark is curious about divers at an Exuma feed.
Greg Locoeur
Other sites such as Monolith and Cut Through City line the Bahamas’ famous walls, where those startlingly white sands are checked by the edge of an abyss. Thanks to the Bahamas’ long protection of sharks, a reefie might be present on nearly every dive. If that’s not enough shark for you, Blackbeard’s Cruises features a feed — something not included on many pricier liveaboard itineraries.
Because the itinerary is open — all is weather- dependent — things can run a little more loosely than on other cruises. A show of hands — and the captain’s bless- ing — could mean you’re suddenly off on a southerly run to Staniel Cay, about halfway down the Exumas, to snorkel the Thunderball Grotto of James Bond fame (challenge yourself to leap from the roof with local teenagers) and meet the famous swimming pigs of Big Major Cay.
Yeah, they’re just pigs. But they’re a hoot, and one more story you won’t soon forget from a trip that paid you back far more dividends than you might expect at the price. blackbeardcruises.com
A typical weeklong itinerary on a Blackbeard’s Cruises boat will cost you $979, including up to 19 dives, meals and drinks; port fees and crew tip are not included.