Blackbeard's Morning Star

The transport dropped us off at the marina and we found our way to the Morning Star.

A 65-foot motor/sail boat, she'd be home to 22 divers and 6 crew for this trip.

To say space was at a premium was an understatement.

I was in the forward cabin, Bunk 2 upper on the right, right at the bow.

Here's the entrance to the forward cabin area:

That hatch and I would be very well acquainted.

First, we setup our BCDs and regulators on the tanks that were in the racks, and the BCDs and regs would stay on the tank the entire time.

Fins, masks, wetsuit, and other gear then went into the storage bins in the seats on the deck.

I then changed and put my street shoes and return trip clothes and other non-essential items such as cases for the dive light and such into my Stahlsac, which was then taken off the boat to be stored on land as there was no room for it nor for the other passengers' checked luggage.

My carry on bag then went to the foot of the mattress on my bed against the front bow, for me to rest my feet on at night.

After unpacking, we all gathered on deck in the horseshoe for a comprehensive safety briefing, and a briefing on the boat and how things worked such as meal times to how to properly use the maritime heads, showering procedures, etc.

Then we went down this hatch to the main salon (also sleeping quarters for 6 divers) to have lunch.

Food was always served buffet style and the table in the salon was often full, so there was always a bunch of people having their meals up on deck in the horseshoe, which was fun.

Amazingly, the cook, Darren, made ridiculously amazing food for everyone in a kitchen about the size of a phone booth, especially in rolling seas.

 

 I also got an official cup for use during the trip for coffee and other beverages, and had brought along a steel water bottle which would be very much needed.

In short it is very close quarters, but being around a bunch of like minded people all there to eat, dive, sleep, and repeat made it a ton of fun and the boiat had a ton of character.

There was even more additional character as the boat's captain's name was Morgan, which made it rather perfect.

Before we could set sail, we were still waiting on the last passenger to arrive, as he had been kidnapped, or press-ganged one might nautically say. In short they took him to the wrong ship, the Aqua Cat and had him checked in there as for some reason his name erroneously showed up as a passenger on both Aqua Cat and Morning Star, and it took a bit to get this sorted out. He got to us and there was much rejoicing. Sadly because it was late we would not get a short check-in dive done as there was not enough time.

Rejoicing included libations of rum punch, which was always available in the evenings, along with some good beer on tap, and there was rum and wine available in the salon below.

The rum punch would be in the yellow cooler, and a enhanced water (lemonade, Gatorade, bug juice etc) would be in the red cooler to be regulatory consumed to keep us hydrated.

It's rather handy to have a beer tap on deck.  Basic rule was drink all you like, but behave yourself, and no drinking and diving, which makes a lot of sense. Once you chose to imbibe, you were done for diving that day.

We headed off to the Exumas, and after dinner and some great conversation on board we all headed to our bunks (which were nicely air conditioned below decks) as we would be up at 6:30 the next day for breakfast and to prepare for our first dive.