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Juliet Sailing and Diving
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Destinations, On board info

What the best time of year to go to the Bahamas?

This is a question we get a lot! And the answer is “Any time!” because the Bahamas are such an amazing group of islands. However, if you?re asking from a scuba liveaboard perspective, let me be a little more specific.

We run trips to the Bahamas from Miami April through November, and that?s very much by design. Winter weather in the Bahamas, while warmer than most places in the US, can be a bit unpredictable. That?s not a big deal if you?re flying over and staying on one of the Bahamas? 300+ islands, but it is a big deal if you have to get there and back by boat. The spring, summer, and fall months allow for a more comfortable ride.

April is a wonderful sailing month and the spring diving is really interesting for the hard-core critter watcher! Florida sees shark migrations up and down their coast regularly in March and April ? and the Bahamas is not much different. Our most diverse shark sightings happen this time of year. You?re most likely to see hammerhead sharks, Bull sharks out on the reefs, and once we even spotted a Sawfish! The water temps are cooler than you think (73-75) which is what the sharks like, so bring a 3mm wetsuit for sure.

May is a big month for fish and coral spawning as water temps start to rise. If you?re a dive geek like us, plan a trip around the full moon in May and you might catch a glimpse of sponge spawning during the day and if you?re really lucky maybe the corals will put on a show at night! Mutton snapper and other species of snapper get frisky this time of year as well, so expect some bigger fish on your dives in May.

June is when the weather starts to settle ? and by settle we mean flat flat flat! The breeze turns to the Southeast, drops to about 5-10 knots from spring?s East 10-15 tradewinds and things warm up really quick! Water temps are hovering right below 80F, air temps are 80-85, and this is when we do our own weekly migration down to the good stuff. Orange Cay and farther south are only accessible in calm weather and June is the best time of year to reliably head south.

July is downright toasty, and the weather even more settled. ?However, we are deep into hurricane season at this point so while the weather is gorgeous and calm and we take advantage of every minute we can of our glassy summer waters, there?s always a risk. All trips from June to October we strongly recommend the purchase of travel insurance; you never know when Mother Nature will spin up a storm!

August brings us similar conditions to July, but the night sky is where the excitement happens. The Perseid meteor shower happens for almost 2 full weeks in the middle of August and there is no better place to watch a meteor shower than from a boat, far from all the light pollution of land. Diving during the day, epic star gazing at night ? sign me up!

September and October are probably our favorite months to be in the Bahamas. The weather is still calm but starting to cool off from the inferno of July and August and the water temps are no-wetsuit-required warm at 83-85F! The best part is there isn?t a boat to be seen. Its fall, the kids are back in school, and the tourists are gone ? it feels like we have the whole ocean to ourselves.

In November we?re back to the easterly tradewinds, great sailing weather, but still warm water temps. We offer some of our longer trips this month to get some more sailing in, and allow for trips to not run into Thanksgiving without cutting anything short. Join us for a 10-day trip just before Thanksgiving, there?s no better way to prepare for the holidays.

Our Bahamas have something for everyone, so pick your month and come diving with us!

Fair winds and Following Seas, Friends

May 23, 2016/0 Comments/by Juliet Sailing and Diving
https://julietsailinganddiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/loggerhead-bahamas-800x531-1.jpg 531 800 Juliet Sailing and Diving https://julietsailinganddiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/juliet-logo-dark.png Juliet Sailing and Diving2016-05-23 16:44:562021-02-14 22:19:02What the best time of year to go to the Bahamas?
Trip Reports

Trip from the Bahamas to the Turks and Caicos

Juliet crew and passengers arrived safe and sound with many new experiences under their belts in the Turks and Caicos last week. They departed Miami 10 days before to begin with a seemingly routine trip to the Bahamas, but this time, they just kept going…

[image size=”one-third” title=”Brain coral dive” alt=”coral reef dive bahamas” align=”left” fancy=”false” shadow=”true”]http://www.julietsailinganddiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/coral-dive.jpg[/image] After hitting up the usual spots in Bimini – the loggerhead turtles of the Hesperus and the jam-packed Strip – they headed to Nassau to dive some more famous wrecks, like the Bond wrecks which were featured in “Thunderball” and “Never Say Never Again.” The weather was perfect and they were sad to leave, but knew that even more incredible diving was just ahead.

From there Juliet continued south, and after a brief stop at the Nassau Blue Hole and cut through Highborne Channel to dive the walls on the east side of the Exumas. A quick jaunt across to Eleuthra for a dive at Jake’s Blue Hole with its intricate and unexplored cave system in the middle of a lush and beautiful coral garden!

A day of diving at Conception Island followed, which never disappoints. This uninhabited island is a Bahamian National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary, and is only dove by a few boats a year. The dramatic walls are healthy and untouched. From there the diving would only get better as they very very slowly made their way to Hogsty Reef.

[image size=”one-half” caption=”Hogsty reef bahamas” title=”hogsty reef bahamas diving” align=”right” fancy=”false” shadow=”true”]http://www.julietsailinganddiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/hogsty-bahamas.jpg[/image] Hogsty Reef is a Caribbean anomaly. Its one of only three true atolls that can be found in the western hemisphere. An atoll is a lagoon island, or a ring-shaped reef in this case, that rises from 6,000 feet to break the surface of the ocean – in the middle of nowhere! It’s thought that atolls are formed from extinct volcanoes which created a seamount and then subsided over time to leave only the atoll in its place. To find remnants of a volcano in the very unvolcanic Bahamas is to say the least strange. Hogsty is home to many wrecks as you might imagine, two plainly visible on the surface and one in about 25′ of water.

The diving at Hogsty was the highlight of the trip. Covered with beautiful corals and sponges, the walls surrounding the atoll made a perfect backdrop for wide-angle photography and our underwater camera gurus on board were thoroughly impressed. The crew and passengers of Juliet were floored by the diving here, and chose to stay for two night dives. Two of the divers – who were celebrating their honeymoon on board – were lucky enough to have a close encounter with a Hammerhead shark! Not your typical honeymoon!

[image size=”one-third” title=”Hawksbill” alt=”diving turtle turks and caicos” align=”left” fancy=”false” shadow=”true”]http://www.julietsailinganddiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/turks-caicos-turtle.jpg[/image]Reluctantly departing from Hogsty, Juliet headed to its final destination at the Turks and Caicos Islands. Everyone loved diving the Driveway, and were so jazzed about the walls elected to do a pre-breakfast dawn dive to watch the underwater world wake up.

After ten days at sea, over 25 dives, eight islands, three countries, 500 miles, and an incredible adventure, the passenger parted ways at Providenciales and the crew has taken Juliet over to Puerto Rico for another rare and amazing experience – diving Mona Island! Stay tuned for more vicarious diving…!

Fair Winds and Calm Seas,

Juliet

December 12, 2011/0 Comments/by Emily Pepperman
https://julietsailinganddiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/juliet-defaultimage.jpg 520 600 Emily Pepperman https://julietsailinganddiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/juliet-logo-dark.png Emily Pepperman2011-12-12 20:29:492011-12-12 20:29:49Trip from the Bahamas to the Turks and Caicos

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