Juliet is on her way back to Miami after another successful winter season in the Turks and Caicos. We are looking forward to sailing the Bahamas again this spring and summer, but the anticipation is bittersweet. With a heavy heart I make this announcement. Juliet Sailing and Diving will not be conducting charters after March 4th, 2014. This will be our last year of operation.

The reasons behind this decision are personal. After 16 years in the dive charter business, it is time to move onto the next chapter of my life. It has been an exciting and rewarding career, but as you probably can imagine, the lifestyle requires sacrifices to be made in other aspects of life. Without being directly involved in the operation of Juliet, I can not guarantee the quality of service that you have come to expect from us. I take an immense amount of pride in the reputation that we have established and will not do anything to put that at risk by passing the company on to an outside party.

Along the lines of preserving quality, our team on Juliet should remain intact through the following year. I am very proud to have the individuals working on Juliet as crew members and as friends. They are professional, fun and genuinely care about providing you with a quality vacation. We plan to stay together as a team and family until the last charter has sailed. We will go out at the top of our game!

I also want to express my gratitude to you for your patronage over the years. Juliet Sailing and Diving could not have existed without our loyal and supportive family of customers. Those of you who know me best know that Juliet Sailing and Diving has never been about the money (though operating and maintaining a 104‘ sailboat does require a bit of money!). It has been about creating something special and sharing it with friends. I have always told my crew that we are not just in the dive business. We are in the happiness business. I hope that we have played a part in creating some happiness for you over the years. I would like to think that you came onboard Juliet as a customer and stepped onshore as a friend. It is the friendships that have formed and the smiles on your faces that have made this all worthwhile.

What will become of Juliet? After our last charter, my friends and family will embark on a 3-5 month trip to take Juliet from Miami to the San Francisco Bay, which is where I call home. Assuming that trip goes well, we will begin plans and preparations for a circumnavigation. If you wish to keep up with Juliet’s adventures, we will have something in place to facilitate that. I will provide details when the time approaches.

Thank you again for your support and friendship! We hope to see you aboard over the next year and that you will keep in touch afterwards.

Fair Winds and Following Seas,

Captain John Beltramo
President
Juliet Sailing and Diving

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Why is summer so special, you might ask? Isn’t it hot? Aren’t there hurricanes?

Yes, it’s quite hot – on land. But we’re out on a boat, catching the sea breeze, no humidity, no overheated insulation from terra firma. Sure the deck gets kinda hot, but just put some shoes on. And enjoy the shade provided by our custom made tarps as you sit on the deck and read, eat lunch, listen to presentations between dives. Oh right, and then there’s the diving. Water temps in the mid 80s – yep, that’s right, no wetsuit needed!

And the weather, well, yes it is hurricane season from June until December. But really, September and October are the big months for Florida and the Bahamas, when the water has been warm for a while. I’m not saying there absolutely won’t be a hurricane in July, but it’s less likely. I’d still recommend buying trip insurance but that’s true of any trip you take on Juliet, hurricane season or not!

Ask any Floridian when they plan to do their trips to the Bahamas by boat, and they’ll tell you absolutely in the summer. Summer time in the Bahamas is well-known to be calm winds, which allows for calmer crossings, and lets us to stray farther from the shelter of nearby islands and down to the pristine undove areas around the Santaren Channel, one of our favorite dive spots in the world!

So what are you waiting for! This won’t last forever, in fact it’s probably going to go quickly. Call to reserve your spot.

July 13-19 : Miami to Bahamas

July 20-26 : Miami to Bahamas

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No whales yet, but plenty of beautiful diving, endless visibility, dramatic walls, and fabulous night dives!

Stay tuned for more updates soon!

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I don’t know about you, but I hate committing to having something in my hand the entire dive – be it a camera, a spear, whatever – it changes the whole feel of the dive for me. But with this crazy lionfish invasion, I do wish I could have a spear with me all the time in case I see one, I just don’t want to carry it around on every single dive! I want to be able to enjoy my dive and not be completely focused on spearing. These Foldspears are great, they fold up to about a foot long and a couple inches wide and strap to your leg, you barely even notice they’re there. But when you need it, there’s a 4′ or 6′ spear at the ready!

And just in time for our Lionfish Round-up in October!

We’re also trying out some new bags to add to our supplies. We’ve been using Armor bags Lionfish bags for about a year now and they seem to work great, even are able to hold Trevor’s record of 36 lionfish (he almost beat it last week with 34.5!). We’ve got another new model we’re trying out – so new we can’t even talk about it yet. Trevor is giving it the ol’ college try next week and will be back with a full report.

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Since then Juliet has traveled throughout the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, US and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Florida Keys, and Dry Tortugas. She has sailed alongside divers, kiteboarders, Humpback whales, schools of dolphins, and has been called home for a week (and often longer!) by thousands of enthusiastic and supportive divers.

Congratulations John and Juliet! Come celebrate Juliet’s 10 year anniversary with us in November. John Beltramo will be Captaining the boat departing from Miami on November 3 and heading out to the Bahamas to dive the Bimini and Cat Cay chain. We will return to Miami on November 9, 2012. Come celebrate the dream with John along with our stellar crew of Trevor, Emily, Will, Hilary, and Jimmy. Call or email to reserve your spot today.

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We get a lot of questions about what exactly this trip is like so here’s a quick run down. Instead of doing static dives on sites that we and some other boats go to often, we’ll drift a large circuit of a dive site – the Victory Reef System – and do a couple runs on the same area to be sure we got as many fish as possible. We’ll send someone up in the crow’s nest (a platform halfway up the forward mast) to look for new reefs; we’ll head to some spots where we know there are lots of Lionfish – like a little area off of Look Out Point in Bimini – and go to town!

Participating is easy, we provide you with the spears, catch bags, and the know-how to safely and effectively eliminate these critters from the reefs. And then, we’ll even show you how to filet them so we can incorporate them into our favorite meals. If you want, we can freeze some on the last day so you can bring a few filets home with you to share with your friends and family. Anything to help spread the word (and the tasty fish!)

Don’t worry if you’ve never spearfished before, or if you’re a new diver. We’ll have crew down there on every dive helping you out.

Join us October 13-19, 2012 and help save the planet! No really…

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June also brought us at least a half dozen Atlantic Spotted dolphin sightings and even a few lucky swims, and divers also saw a Hammerhead Shark on one of the dives down south. July has been no slouch either, just this week we got word from the boat that Trevor saw a whaleshark while the boat was mooring off of the West End of Grand Bahama, and then a Lemon shark later that day! I don’t know about you guys, but I’m diving with Trevor from now on.

A few impromptu trips to Grand Bahama (at the request of passengers) brought us Shark Week, Juliet style. Lemon sharks, whale sharks, Caribbean Reef sharks, you name it. Eleven on one dive even! Can’t wait to see the pictures.

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Despite having two named storms before the official June 1 opening of hurricane season, our first two trips in June were uneventful weather-wise. In fact, for most of the trips we barely had a stitch of wind! Our first week was a group of divers from all over, some from Arizona, others from right here in Florida, even one diver from China. Despite not knowing eachother when they boarded, everyone left with more friends than they came with and had a beautiful trip. We were able to sail (or motor rather since there was no wind!) down to the eastern edge of the Santaren channel and dive some of the most pristine dive sites in the Bahamas – Long Bow, Lost Medallion, Freedom Reef, among others.

Week two brought another hodgepodge of divers – this time from Boston, Chicago, North Carolina, Colorado, and Indiana. We were also lucky enough to have a couple of musicians on board who treated us to some songs on surface intervals, even a few sea shanties! Again, we were treated to some beautiful glassy seas, though we were able to sail one day towards the beginning of the week. The divers enjoyed some of the dive sites so much they wouldn’t let the crew leave – we stayed for an extra dawn dive on Long Bow because we couldn’t get enough of it. The lionfish count was definitely respectable at 159 and although the captain and one of the passengers got stung accidentally, they managed to exact their revenge by devouring their adversaries in a taco.

Divers on both trips were also treated to the newest addition to the fleet, a hybrid paddle-yak – a stand-up paddleboard (or SUP) that converts into a kayak. There was much taunting and laughing as folks tried to balance on the board and paddle laps around the boat, and the consensus was it is a great addition to Juliet.

The good weather continued through the next few weeks, delighting a group of families on board for a yearly scout trip, as well as the beginning of the next trip where we welcomed back the divers and staff of Open Water Adventures. But the weather started to turn a little at the end of the month, chasing Juliet back to Miami a day early on one trip, and all out cancelling the next with no thanks to Tropical Storm Debby! Hurricane season is indeed upon us – don’t forget your trip insurance!

Fortunately next week is looking fantastic – the calm AFTER the storm, apparently. Maybe that will be it for the year and we’ll be treated to flat calm seas for the rest of the summer. That’s why summer is our favorite season on Juliet – the water is warm, and the weather is beautiful as long as there are no hurricanes in the area.

Fingers crossed for the rest of the season!

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This last week we had to cancel our trip. The weather was predicted to be miserable at best with winds coming strong out of the most inconvenient direction possible! This image, (courtesy of Kel Sweeting of the Dolphin Communication Project) illustrates exactly why we had to cancel – for three days wind, waves and rain we plotting against the Bahamas and the best decision was to not risk the safety of our passengers. Luckily, everyone heeded our advice and had trip insurance and will be able to recoup almost all of their expenses and hopefully be able to join us again later this year!

For only a couple hundred dollars, the peace of mind is worth it!

Agencies that we recommend:

TravelEx Insurance (http://www.travelexinsurance.com/)

Divers Alert Network (https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/trip/)

DiveAssure (http://www.diveassure.com/new/usa/compareTravelPrograms.html)

As always, please contact us with any questions!

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You must have killed a lionfish with your bare hands! 

Ok, maybe with a spear and not your bare hands as they are quite toxic, the point is these T-shirts are only available if you are in fact a Lionfish Slayer and killed that Lionfish while on board Juliet. There is a limited amount available right now so be sure to book your trip and secure your trophy shirt!

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