osufhorn
Registered
Well, here's my report on Nekton's Puerto Rico/St. Croix itinerarry from the Dec. 8th-15th trip. Unfortunately, I don't believe that I got a great idea of how things really go due to the weather.
We were late pulling out of Fajardo on Saturday due to late arriving guests. The trip over was very rough and a lot of people were seasick (yeah you can forget that no seasickness thing) including some of the crew. We finally pulled into the leeward (western) side of St. Croix about 1-2pm on Sunday. I later found out that in addition to the rough weather, we were also going very slowly due to 1 engine being down. We spent the majority of the week on the west side of St. Croix as the weather was mostly too rough to go around to the northern side where I understand most of the better diving is. The west side of St. Croix is by and large not in great shape. There is a large amount of dead coral and there are few large fish or other animals there which I suspect is due to over fishing. However, the soft coral, sponges, fans, and small fishes are healthy and abundant. There were 2 sites on the west side I would consider good to very good, the Butler Bay wrecks, and the Frederickstadt town pier. The rest were average at best to down right awful. We did get a small taste of the north side on Tuesday when we were able to sneak around the corner for the day, unfortunately the vis was awful as we moved further around the north side so we were restricted to the north western corner. Based on what I saw, I suspect that the north side would have been pretty good diving had we been able to stay there.
The ship itself is about as others have described it, very plain and worn, but comfortable. The dive setup however, was really pretty good with the only problem being that the dive deck was a little crowded when everyone wanted to get into the water at the same time. The bad news was that it seemed that the disrepair extended to some of the ship's major systems and I was very disturbed when I found out mid week that the ship had only had 1 engine operable for some time. There was no nitrox either and it seemed there haden't been for a while and wouldn't be for some time to come. The food was just fine. Homestyle and pleanty of it. The crew and captain did a good to great job putting on happy faces when faced with the weather problems and mechanical difficulty.
In conclusion, I suspect that St. Croix is worth diving if you can get around the north side, although that remains for someone else to see. The Frederickstadt pier is a definite must dive, although 6 dives on 2 days was quite enough for me. The crew was great, but the mechanical problems on the Rorqual make me question Nekton's commitment to producing good trips.
We were late pulling out of Fajardo on Saturday due to late arriving guests. The trip over was very rough and a lot of people were seasick (yeah you can forget that no seasickness thing) including some of the crew. We finally pulled into the leeward (western) side of St. Croix about 1-2pm on Sunday. I later found out that in addition to the rough weather, we were also going very slowly due to 1 engine being down. We spent the majority of the week on the west side of St. Croix as the weather was mostly too rough to go around to the northern side where I understand most of the better diving is. The west side of St. Croix is by and large not in great shape. There is a large amount of dead coral and there are few large fish or other animals there which I suspect is due to over fishing. However, the soft coral, sponges, fans, and small fishes are healthy and abundant. There were 2 sites on the west side I would consider good to very good, the Butler Bay wrecks, and the Frederickstadt town pier. The rest were average at best to down right awful. We did get a small taste of the north side on Tuesday when we were able to sneak around the corner for the day, unfortunately the vis was awful as we moved further around the north side so we were restricted to the north western corner. Based on what I saw, I suspect that the north side would have been pretty good diving had we been able to stay there.
The ship itself is about as others have described it, very plain and worn, but comfortable. The dive setup however, was really pretty good with the only problem being that the dive deck was a little crowded when everyone wanted to get into the water at the same time. The bad news was that it seemed that the disrepair extended to some of the ship's major systems and I was very disturbed when I found out mid week that the ship had only had 1 engine operable for some time. There was no nitrox either and it seemed there haden't been for a while and wouldn't be for some time to come. The food was just fine. Homestyle and pleanty of it. The crew and captain did a good to great job putting on happy faces when faced with the weather problems and mechanical difficulty.
In conclusion, I suspect that St. Croix is worth diving if you can get around the north side, although that remains for someone else to see. The Frederickstadt pier is a definite must dive, although 6 dives on 2 days was quite enough for me. The crew was great, but the mechanical problems on the Rorqual make me question Nekton's commitment to producing good trips.
