Hello,

Your departure date for the Odyssey Expeditions S.E.A. Advanced Adventure voyage from June 21th to July 11th is very near. We hope you are as excited as we are.

We are very excited to have you joining us for some excellent adventure and learning! I hope this guide can help you prepare a bit. We will be visiting three beautiful and charming countries on a Southerly journey from Saint Lucia to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and fisnishing in Grenada.

There is a lot of information here. We tried to make it as comprehensive as possible. Please share this letter with your parents. Yes, it is a bit long, but the information is for your best benefit.

I will be posting voyage updates on some social media, but I can't tag anyone on facebook that is not a 'friend', so I invite you to friend me over there as well as like and follow Odyssey on Facebook Follow Odyssey on Instagram
You can do a friend request with your Captain:
Please Note: Our Summer Office address after June 1st is:
Odyssey Expeditions
1959 Riveredge Dr
Tarpon Springs, FL 34689
AIRLINE FLIGHT LIST: A copy of the current student flights is available here: Odyssey Voyage 2 Flight List

If you do not see your flights, it is because we do not have your itinerary. (Hint, hint)

Some of you are traveling long distances and have more than one flight leg. Check the list to see if you are sharing a flight. E-mail the other shipmates and form a travel team. This is where the red shirt makes it easier to find one another at the gates. If you are one of our older shipmates and younger ones are at your gates, please act the big brother or sister. Delays can happen and it is so much nicer to share the trials of the day with another person.

  1. Absolute MUST HAVE THIS FORM FILLED OUT For our Customs and immigration purposes, please fill out this passport information form so that we can have your vessel's paperwork prepared for departure - Please fill this out ASAP
    Marine Customs & Passport Immigration Form
  2. All travelers are strongly encouraged to complete the Saint Lucia arrival info form online prior to arrival to avoid delays on arrival.
    The form should be submitted no more than 3 days before travel to Saint Lucia.
    Saint Lucia - Electronic Immigration Form

    For a Cheat Sheet to this form please see:
    Cheat Sheet
    .
If you have any outstanding paperwork or releases, you will NOT be able to come aboard.

THINGS YOU NEED TO TRAVEL WITH:

  • Passport and a COPY of the page that has your photo and information (in separate bag)
  • SCUBA certification card or a copy of it
  • Dive insurance card or information
  • $100 Emergency money (in US$ cash) in a sealed envelope with your name on it. Preferably not a $100 bill but $20's
  • A carry-on with essential items (bathing suit, toothbrush, shorts, shirt, dive booties and anything else you can't live or dive without)
  • MONEY -you will need some spending money for airport transfers, souvenirs, restaurants, gratuity, and a Odyssey Rash Guard shirt.

ABOUT MONEY

ATM'S ashore
The official currency in the islands is the Eastern Caribbean dollar. You can obtain this at ATM's located ashore at most ports of call. You will need an ATM card for this. The EC is $2.71 to the $1.00 US. This is the best way to pay for purchases at restuarants or ashore.

Restaurant Money
We will have the opportunity to go out to eat for dinner at least twice and lunch at least three times, eating ashore is a great way to get a feel for a place and experience the culture. Meals ashore are not included in your tuition, please bring funds for this or plan on obtaining from an ATM, plan on $20-$40 for each dinner ashore (1-3) and $10-$20 for lunches ashore (1-3 or more). Most resturants will not be able to break 15 students large bills, so do have smaller bills too.

Spending Money
$50- $100 per week should cover souvenirs and miscellaneous purchases ashore not including the Restaurant, Rash-Guard, and Airport Transfers. I suggest obtaining this in the islands at an ATM, or bring it with you in three weekly installments in separate sealed envelopes, labeled with the students name, week number, and amount enclosed.

Consider bringing $30 to purchase a Odyssey Expeditions Rash Guard (it's a waterproof shirt like surfers wear and is a great way to keep sun off you while sailing or getting ready to dive, you can put the $30 cash in an envelope labeled RASH GUARD)

Suggested Gratuity
Suggested US $75 per instructor (there are 3 instructors onboard - $225) for their very fine help and assistance and excellence in instruction they provide you with education and inspiration during your voyage. This suggested 1% gratuity on the cost of the voyage per instructor will go a long way in acknowledging them on the enormous effort they provide you with Marine Biology, SCUBA, Sailing, Freediving, Watersports and life instructional activities. Remember, you are still the 'crew' of your vessel and will have daily chores onboard, this is not a 'crew' gratuity that would traditionally be expected if the Odyssey staff were doing all the chores onboard (cooking, cleaning, dishes), such a gratuity is usually a 10-20% gratuity (The students are the crew so no gratuity necessary for that) This is not that, it is a thank you for the fine instructional interaction with your instructors and acknowledging them. We suggest to please have three separate labeled and sealed envelopes for this acknowledgement.

Safeguarding Monetary Funds
The captain will collect all arriving funds to be safeguarded when you come onboard the first night, it will actually be stored in an onboard safe! All funds to be safeguarded need to be labeled with the students name, purpose of the funds, amount enclosed, and sealed in individual envelopes. With all envelopes in a labled ziplock bag. Once an envelope is opened, it will be the students responsibility and will NOT be stored in the safe. (This is not in-and-out, just out) We plan to only open the safe when we are headed ashore. We can't tabulate balances, pay out partial amounts, or return monies to the safe unless it is still in the sealed envelope. Students will be responsible for safeguarding the funds they obtain from ATM's and funds distributed by the captain.

Airport Transfers
Airport transfers will be arranged for you, but the cost for transfers are not included in tuition. Usually, a group of students will be arriving at or near the same time, so a taxi will be shared at a cost of about $25 each for 4 or more in the Taxi, for less than 4 its $100 for the taxi (1-3 people), but if you are arriving at a time different from everyone else, plan for up to $85 US for the St. Lucia ride. We will have an Odyssey staff member at the airport to assist you.

Grenada Info On the final day of the voyage, for those that are departing in the afternoon, we will arrange for you to go on an island tour with our reliable and friendly taxi driver to visit the town square of St Georges for a final shopping opportunity for some spices and t-shirts then to tour the island and visit Fort George and Fort Frederick. This tour will get you up early in the morning for a beautiful croissant breakfast at the bakery and then to the airport in time for your afternoon flights. Please set aside an extra $25 to cover the cost of your tour.

General
Restaurants and shops generally accept MC/VISA, but usually at a premium both by the proprietor AND your bankcard issuer (3% each and an exchange rate fee of 2%, so 8%) Some cards, like CapitolOne, do not charge these fees. When everyone in the group tries to pay separately the waitor gets overwhelmed, so it is best to be able to settle up with cash.

Using local EC currency ashore is best. You can get funds from an ATM machine directly into the local currency at an exchange rate of $1US=$2.71 Eastern Caribbean Dollars. Getting money from the ATM is probably best, but only full fledged ATM cards from a bank seem to work, those cards you can buy at Walmart, not likely. The ATM charges $5 US for a transaction and there is a $500 US a day limit (and your bank probably charges $5 for the foreign ATM transaction too). Using US dollars ashore is possible, but you usually get an exchange rate of $2.50 or $2.60 to $1 and you have to do the math when negotiating.

As a last resort, your Captain can go ashore and withdraw money for you from his ATM account if funds are pre-sent to PayPal account admin@OdysseyExpeditions.com, to cover all the transaction costs there will be a 4% plus $10 fee for each transaction, so its NOT your best option and highly discouraged as he is limited to the $500 daily withdrawl limit and needs these funds to pay for ongoing voyage expenses.

ABOUT PACKING:

Pack your carry-on - Have your copy of your passport in your carry-on, as well as your dive booties, wet-suit, bathing suit, toothbrush, medicines, some shorts and t-shirts and anything else you need to be comfortable for a couple days in the event your main bag is lost or delayed. You can borrow most everything else from your shipmates, but dive booties and wet-suits cannot be economically purchased in the islands. Think of your carry-on as being the bag for essentials. The other bag can be for everything else, don't put stupid stuff in your carry-on, you will regret it if your bags do not show up for a day or two, and as we leave St. Lucia a couple days after your arrival, if it is not located by our departure time we can NOT wait around for it, so you could be with what your brought in your carry-on for the whole trip.

Your main bag needs to be a duffel bag without wheels or hard sides. DO NOT BRING ANY OTHER TYPE OF BAG, HARD SIDES, ETC.

Seriously!!! We do not have room to store your hard sided bag or bag with wheels and a frame. We don't have room, we can't leave it ashore. PLEASE do not bring anything but a soft sided duffel that does NOT have wheels!

Upon boarding, we will have everyone unpack completely and store all the bags inside the biggest bag - this does not work with bags with wheels, frames, hard sides, or the like. There is NO place on-board to store hard-sided luggage or luggage with rolling wheels, etc. Please do not bring these hard bags or bags with hard elements! There is no under-bed storage(that is where the vessels diesel engines are, in fact) Bring ONLY completely soft-sided duffel bags without ANY WHEELS OR ROLLERS. If you bring a roller bag, IT WILL BE YOUR BED.

Please put any liquids or creams in a double zip-lock bag (those sunblocks and shampoos have a way of opening up while you travel). There is a grocery store at the charter base, you could just purchase these items upon arrival and not risk a messy spill in transit.

Please know what your bag looks like (take a photo of it and email it to yourself) and be able to describe it, and have identification tags attached. Seriously, bags DO get delayed and lost. It is also important NOT to lose those claim tickets you get when checking in.

Please do not bring an excessive amount of things, there is little storage space in the cabins (no walk in closets, chests of drawers, etc.) and you will be sharing your cabin with three other shipmates. The less you bring - the better!

Bring only what you really need! What is that, you ask?

Think of this as a backpack camping trip that just happens to be on a sailboat, NOT as a luxury yachting voyage (it most certainly is NOT the latter!)

THINGS YOU REALLY NEED TO BRING:
  • A FLEECE sleeping bag - NOT a big fluffy one, NO PLACE TO STORE A BIG SLEEPING BAG.
    Please bring a sleeping bag like this one:
    EXAMPLE - GOOD CHOICE
    EXAMPLE - BAD CHOICE - TOO BIG AND THICK (DON'T BRING THIS)!
    Most students choose to sleep outside under the stars on the vessels trampolines on the front of the boat. Nights can be breezy, so you will want the sleeping bag. A sleeping pad is nice, but if you are the type of person who will leave it behind on the trampoline when it starts to rain and you run inside, it is guaranteed to blow away.
  • Three thin-towels. They should be thin, lightweight towels, NOT thick, heavy beach towels. You want a few thin towels. The thick towel is a bad idea (it does not dry, it mildews instead, yuck STINK). Think, "Will this dry quickly in the wind?" The nicer the towel seems at home, the worse it will be on the boat. Threadbare towels are BEST.
  • Toothbrush and toiletries
  • Medication: If you are taking prescription medications, please make sure they are well marked and make sure your captain is aware of the dose and schedule. Likewise, if you have a food allergy - double check that your captain is aware (especially peanut ). If you use an Epi-pen for allergies, make sure your captain knows and that he knows where you keep it. If you need an Epi-pen, bring it!
  • Four bathing suits
  • Dive Booties (our dive fins require you to have dive booties, thin ones are fine, no zipper required, needs gripper sole)
  • We supply the Dive logbook (to log your awesome dives!)
  • Wet Suit (a 1-3 mm long or shorty is all you need, I like full suits for abrasion and jellyfish protection, but it is not cold, thin is best as it is easy to get on)
  • Four pair of cotton shorts
  • Seven T-Shirts
  • A casual outfit to go ashore in at night.
  • Ample Sunblock - not the aerosol kind. (They don't work in the wind, and it is always windy in the Windward Islands, it is kind of like spray painting in the wind), look for reef friendly sunblock (stuff WITHOUT oxybenzone as it kills the coral!).
  • Hat
  • NON Metalic Water bottle for hikes ashore (Please NO METAL WATER BOTTLES, they fall on the teak floor and destroy it, yikes, lesson learned, not needed to be repeated, bring a PLASTIC water bottle only.)
  • Sunglasses
  • A dive watch (this one is cheap and great! GOOD WATCH)
  • Another dive watch possibility (this one a bit more but seems legit!) NICE FREEDIVE COMPUTER WATCH
  • Shoes with socks to go hiking through mud for hiking. (The shoes will be likely get very muddy - bring a pair you are ready to toss.)
  • Sandals or the like for shore visits
  • Waterproof, windproof rain-jacket if we hike the highlands in (its actually cold at 4000 feet with 40 knot winds!)
  • Backpack to carry stuff ashore in
  • Couple big zip locks or garbage bags to pack up your stinky stuff for your return home
  • Camera of some sort (waterproof best)
  • Swim-Ear supply (2 bottles) Equate brand
  • Prescription Antibiotic Ear Drops (like Neomycin or polymyxin) for the inevitable Otis External ear infection
  • SUDAFED® Maximum Strength Sinus Congestion tablets, these contain seudoephedrine HCl, a nasal decongestant that helps reduce nasal swelling and inflammation to improve ease of ear clearing (not the PE version, it doesn't work well). They are available for in-store purchase only, behind the pharmacy counter, without a prescription.
  • Hibiclens see below. Antimicrobial soap
  • Mosquito Spray see below


Things you may wish to bring but are not essential or necessary:
  • Your own regulator, dive computer, mask, fins, snorkel (we do supply all of these, and they are of high quality, but you are most welcome to bring your own)
  • Hiking pants
  • Underwater Camera. If you have a GoPro we recommend the housing and set of filters"
  • USB Battery (to charge your cell phone with)
  • Foam or inflatable sleeping camp pad


Things you do not need, please do not bring!
  • Laptop or tablet computers
  • Tanning-oils (they make the boat boat deck dangerously slippery)
  • Blue Jeans
  • Metallic water bottles - DO NOT BRING A METAL WATER BOTTLE!
  • Any vaping supplies or materials - DO NOT BRING ANY VAPE STUFF, NO CBD, NO THC, NO NICOTINE
  • Any drug or non-prescription medications
  • Any tobacco products
  • Burner or dummy phones (we were not born yesterday)
  • Underwater photography case for a phone, bring an underwater camera instead, you don't have access to your phone except when in port.
  • Hair Dryer
  • Curling or Straightening Irons
  • Lots of shoes or any dressy shoes.


About Entertainment Electronics

This is a wilderness diving trip. We will gladly charge your camera, but do not have electricity plugs from the inverter available to keep 12 cell phones, 12 laptops or tablets and the like charged. Earphones are not used on-board (due to health, safety and social reasons). Cell phones will be collected and stored in a safe onboard and distributed to you when we go ashore. You can't charge it while it is in the safe and we won't take it out to charge it, so maybe bring a separate charging battery.

Remember once underway, electricity is only available for charging cameras (we only have a small inverter connected to the vessel's house batteries, only 100 watts and three plug sockets available). We can't charge cell phones or any other electronic devices while away from the dock. On the last night of the voyage, the vessel will be connected to shore power, so charging will be possible from all outlets on the vessel, so you can charge your cell phone before returning home. There is a generator onboard, but it is only used periodically, it is only on enough to keep the food refrigerators charged when we have not motored anywhere. Usually the transit engines are used to charge the vessel batteries as it is much more efficient.

Bring the USB cords you need to charge what you need charged, and maybe put a label on it to keep it yours.

TRAVELING TO SAINT LUCIA

There are two airports in St. Lucia, the northern one in Castries (the Charles airport, code SLU) is serviced by local airline with connections throughout the Caribbean. This is not the airport where you will be arriving.

The main airport is to the far south of the island (the Hewanorra airport, code UVF) is serviced by jets from Miami and Atlanta and JFK with American and Delta airlines. The flights all arrive between 1 pm to 4 pm. This airport is 1.5 hours away from Rodney Bay.

As each airline has only one flight arriving per day, it is very important to try and not miss any of your connecting flights! Be sure to show up at your departing airport two hours early. We have had travelers show up with only a small window of opportunity and their bags were not able to travel with them and were delayed multiple days.

If you encounter a flight delay en route, be sure to find out any new flight numbers and departure times, and contact your parents and the Odyssey Expeditions office at 727-619-6246 with the new flight information, or email it to Sara@OdysseyExpeditions.com, at the office.

If you are not going to be able to make the flight to St. Lucia, do not panic, the vessel will still be on the island the following day and you can join us upon arrival. On the South SEA voyage on June 21th, we will be at anchor at Pigeon Island, Rodney Bay, and on the 22th, we will be moored in Anse Cachone, reachable by taxi. If you can't reach the vessel by day 3, you will need to make other arrangements for your time as the vessel will need to be moving on, you would have missed the boat :( .

LOST LUGGAGE
If you have any missing baggage, it is imperative that you fill out a lost baggage claim with the airline while still at the airport. Please be sure to have luggage tags on your luggage and list your address as The Moorings/SunSail Base, Rodney Bay St. Lucia. You should absolutely keep your plane ticket stubs and luggage checked ticket number if you are missing any luggage, it will be vital for finding any delayed luggage. Lost luggage usually turns up in a day or two. Thefts of expensive items left in lost luggage is possible, so we do not recommend checking expensive electronic items, we do recommend carrying your camera in your carry on and leaving all other electronics safely at home, the voyage is an unplugged wilderness adventure anyway. I ALWAYS TAKE A PHOTO OF MY LUGGAGE SO I CAN SHARE IT WITH THE AGENTS IF NECESSARY.

UPON ARRIVAL
Customs will ask you where you are staying. Please say you are on the Moorings vessel 'Amity' with Odyssey Expeditions, the vessels are in Rodney Bay. You should declare that you are staying 6 days as a visitor for vacation/pleasure and your next destination is St. Vincent and our final departure is Grenada on July 11.

PLEASE KEEP THE WHITE PAPER ARRIVAL SLIP THE IMMIGRATION OFFICER GIVES YOU IN YOUR PASSPORT - you NEED this to exit the island and if you lose it you will have to go to the immigration office in person and fill it out again when the vessel checks out of St. Lucia bound for St. Vincent.

After you pass through immigration and customs, you should be greeted by an Odyssey transportation representative wearing a blue Odyssey Expeditions T-Shirt. We will help you with your bag and arrange your transport to the Moorings/Sunsail Charter Base. Our yacht is a catamaran named 'Sail La Vie' or 'Amity'. The transfer is about 90 minutes. If for some reason there is not a staff member at the airport to greet you, please do not panic, please look around for the Odyssey staff member and be sure we are not at the airline counter or sometimes helping another student. If you are sure there is no staff member, something must have caused our delay, we meant to be there! Please just take a cab ride to 'The Moorings Yacht Charter Base in Rodney Bay, there will be plenty of safe cab drivers at the airport, they are all licensed and insured. Please wear a red T-shirt to help us identify you at the airport.

ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS DURING THE VOYAGE

We understand that family communication is important and make available opportunities for communicating with your loved ones; however, the voyage experience while underway is 'unplugged' and as such, cell phones, personal music and video players and speakers, personal computers, tablets, etc. are not part of the program. There are multiple reasons for this policy, including a lack of 110v charging options on-board (only one small wattage inverter is available and dedicated to camera charging only - the cabins do NOT have 110v outlets when away from the dock). We also wish to engage the students with their immediate surroundings, shipmates, and physical environment opportunities and strongly believe that personal entertainment electronics are a detriment to this interaction with each other and the world around us. With the beautiful reefs, mountains, beaches, villages, and interesting students and staff around us, we hope to bring people out of their electronic shells and discover the world awaiting them. Also, the sharing of earphones promotes the sharing of ear infections. As such, all personal entertainment electronics are available only during shore visits and earphones are not allowed onboard (you can't hear a call for assistance if you can't hear because of earphones in your ears and music playing).

You may turn your phone on and attempt to use it if you need to, but we do NOT provide charging ports during the voyage for cell phones, you should bring a charging brick (external battery) for this purpose. I am sorry to be sounding as a broken record on this charging thing... Do know that the international roaming calls and data rates can be very expensive if your phone is set up improperly. Phones are collected and stored safely while on board. They will be made available ashore when a wi-fi signal is known to be available (usually about once a week) so you can communicate with your family and friends back home. Sure, you can sign up for international roaming with your provider and your phone and data may work in the islands, but it will work surprisingly poorly, usually like 3G H+ level service, it is honestly terrible. I have to buy a local prepaid Sim card and plan to have anything remotely good enough not to pull all my hair out! It is $100 US for every 15GB of data. (Which then gets eaten up by some setting of your phone trying to back up videos taken to the cloud...)

In several areas of our voyage, we will have a wi-fi signal ashore.

Upon your arrival, we will have you call home to inform your loved ones of your safe arrival. If your phone works at this stage, feel free to use it for this purpose, otherwise this will either be from the directors cell phone, so please plan on keeping this call short if using his phone as everyone will be trying to use the same communications device (remember it is up-to a two hour taxi ride to the base before you can make this call). PARENTS, please plan to accept phone calls from any of these are codes: 352 & 727 - Florida, 758 - St Lucia, 473 - Grenada, 596 - Martinique.

If a parent must send a message to a student on the program, you can attempt to message the captain (see facebook link above). I don't have a local St Lucia number yet and we will update you with our new SIM upon arrival in St Lucia. As we are often anchored in coves that are in a radio shadow, incoming calls and messages are sometimes not possible, but outgoing calls are always available by getting in the dingy and going out to sea a bit - so this can delay the retrieval of messages. You can also email messages to Odyssey@OdysseyExpeditions.com and they should be available to the director within 24 hours. .

We do NOT have continuous connectivity to the Internet or cellular service, we are on a sailboat, often sailing offshore or anchored in a cellular dead zone. Please do not expect continuous connectivity! We do check in daily or more but don't expect instantaneous and please don't abuse connectivity when it exists.

Parents, please remember that`no news` is `good news.` While we encourage frequent contact with home, if you do not hear from your loved one - they are safe and are most likely having the time of their lives. If a problem of any kind arises, we will be in contact with you.

Parents, please keep us informed if you will be away from home and please provide us with updates to your contact information, dates, etc. We too do need to know how and who to contact in the event of emergency or problem.

THE "WHAT'S UP" PAGE


In case of severe weather or a national emergency, have your parents or loved one go to the What's Up page on our website.

In the rare event of an emergency, it is very difficult to get timely information to all parents. We will post information on weather or airport closures, etc., on the page. You may still call the office, but please check at this site first as it may answer your question and allow the office staff to efficiently coordinate actions. Remember, there are many students and only a small office staff in the summer. www.odysseyexpeditions.com/whatsup
Important messages can also be received by subscribing to our Twitter Feed at www.twitter.com/odyex

POSTAL MAIL
Not possible.

The Moorings Base Customer Service is open 9am-5pm EST seven days a week: Saint Luica: 758-451-4357, Grenada: 473-435-6661

The above is the marina customer service, not Odyssey Expeditions customer service. They will NOT know if your child has arrived or is having a good time. Call Odyssey with Odyssey questions. 727-619-6246

INTERNET ACCESS
We do not have continuous Internet access. There will be a few opportunities to use the Internet ashore.

ABOUT YOUR HEALTH DURING THE VOYAGE:

Cuts and wounds heal very slowly in moist tropical environments. It is best to behave with more caution than normal to help avoid them. We do have Wilderness First Responders on each program and can assist in treating accidents and illnesses, but prevention is definitely the best.

If you think you might get seasick, a prescription of Transderm Scop works wonders!

IN CASE OF ILLNESS
In the event you become ill (not dive related) and need medical attention, you will be taken to the nearest medical facility. Medical providers may not accept your health insurance card (Most don't). Your emergency money will be used to pay for medical fees in that case. If emergency money and insurance does not cover medical costs, you will need to provide a form of payment. Odyssey Expeditions can only assist you on this. The staff will make every attempt to secure paperwork acceptable to your insurance company. (Dive Assure or DAN insurance takes over in case of diving emergencies).

EAR INFECTIONS
You will be in the water a LOT. Using Swim Ear properly will help keep ear infections at bay. Despite what most people believe, Otis external (ear infections) are not caused by bacteria in the water: instead, it's triggered by the bacteria normally found in your external ear canal being suddenly exposed to a continuous damp environment and wetness. Do not let your trip be ruined by believing you cannot get an ear infection. The trick is in the application of ear drops to displace the water with alcohol and glycerin. Before your first dive in the morning and after your last dive each night, here's what to do:

To properly use Swim Ear - The head is tilted to one side and the external ear canal gently filled with the solution, which must remain in the canal for five minutes. The head is then tilted to the other side, the solution allowed to run out, and the proce