Documents/Paperwork
Make sure to bring your passport along, as well as your diving Certification Card and proof of DAN or equivalent insurance. You can email them in advance.
Each guest will have to fill out and sign our Epic Diving Waiver, which will be emailed to you in advance and can be completed and signed electronically.
Temperatures in the Bahamas:
We’re often asked about the water temperature and dive suit recommendations. It really is a personal decision based on each individual person’s cold tolerance. On average, divers wear either a 3mm or 5mm suit. Even if you feel like you are always hot, full-length suits are required so that your skin is covered. That could be a thin skin suit up to a full dry suit. It’s up to your comfort level. Here’s a chart showing the expected temperatures in the Bahamas during our seasons:
Rental Gear:
Rental gear is limited and must be reserved in advance. Please let us know as soon as possible if you will be needing to rent gear so we can ensure that it’s available for your trip. If not pre-arranged, it’s not likely to be available for you on arrival.
Trip Insurance:
We strongly recommend dive accident insurance as well as separate dive trip/travel insurance. These policies can be purchased from DAN, DiveAssure, and a number or other agencies.
There are no refunds for lost days of diving due to weather cancellations, natural disaster, trip delays, injury or equipment issues. You should check with individual policies to ensure that you are covered in the event of unforeseen issues.Take a look at our page that discusses some details about dive travel insurance.
Planning Your Flights:
Planning your travel into the Bahamas can be a pretty easy task, but there are a few pointers worth mentioning.
There are regularly scheduled flights from Nassau to both New Bight, Cat Island (Oceanic Expeditions) and Freeport, Grand Bahama (Tiger Expeditions). While there are also a number of routine flights to Grand Bahama from the US (mostly Florida), there are very few that offer service to Cat Island.
Domestic Flights within the Bahamas are generally aboard small jets. No large commercial airliners land at either location. While you’re able to carry on a small bag or backpack, expect that your typical carry-on roller will become check luggage for the short flight to the islands.
The smaller airlines will usually not accept reservations more than one year in advance, so you may have to wait to book your travel. Keep in mind that these planes have around 20 seats and flights may fill up fast, especially during holiday weekends.
Internet:
There is internet available at each of the hotels and rental homes. However, the connection speed may be slower than you’re used to and downtime/outages are common.
Meals:
Our expeditions include lunch on the boat during dive days. Please let us know if you have any special dietary needs or allergies. Breakfast and dinners are not included in the trip cost unless specified. At each resort, there is an onsite restaurant where you can dine.
Electricity:
Outlets at the hotels, as well as the M/V Thresher, are standard 110 V found in the US. International guests should bring the appropriate converters you may need.
What are the Dives Like:
The dive conditions are incredible. We typically enjoy warm, calm, crystal clear water. Although the temperature is between 76 – 80 degrees F (24.5 – 27.5 degrees C), we require guests to wear full length wetsuits, as well as tropical gloves. Short or tropical wetsuits result in a high contrast area where the suit and your fleshy limbs meet, which might spark unwanted investigation. For this same reason, we strongly recommend black equipment and prefer to avoid any bright/flashy colors. We provide tanks, which are Aluminum 80s with a few DIN valves available, as well as weight belts and weights.
There are a variety of different dive scenarios when we interact with the sharks.
All Tiger Shark Expeditions are SCUBA only and guests will have up to 3 dives per day. Depth varies but is shallow in general, and bottom times are longer. For the most part, divers will be overweighted and kneeling on the bottom. It’s easy diving, so you can focus all your attention on the sharks surrounding you. We will be in the water together as a group.