Cocos Island or Turks and Caicos or other?

[Dan]

One of the reasons I want to go with Argo is this:

 

[Satrekker]

One of the reason I want to go with Argo is this:

I saw that. It looks very cool. You'll definitely have to post a trip report afterwards about what it's like.

 

[Dan]

I saw that. It looks very cool. You'll definitely have to post a trip report afterwards about what it's like.

Seeing the life at 1000' deep is a once in a life time experience! Most definitely I'll post a trip report. I hope you would do the same.

I thought the Marine Park fees of $100 for Raja Ampat and Galapagos are too much, but Cocos is in another class by itself for $490. So, get ready to cough up lots of dough when you are there.

 

[KeithG]

Seeing the life at 1000' deep is a once in a life time experience! Most definitely I'll post a trip report. I hope you would do the same.

I thought the Marine Park fees of $100 for Raja Ampat and Galapagos are too much, but Cocos is in another class by itself for $490. So, get ready to cough up lots of dough when you are there.

Seeing a pipehorse in the T&C may also be a once in a life time event?

Just want to toss in a vote for us macro fans...

 

[Trailboss123]

I agree with you. One of the main reasons I chose Cocos over T&C was due to the type of diving. Though I live on the west coast of FL, my favorite diving is off of Jupiter and W. Palm. These are deeper dives with strong current - my favorite type of diving. It reminds me a bit of Cozumel as to depth and current. I'll be taking my nautilus lifeline along with my plb in a dive canister, and dsmb deployment is standard on a w. palm dive, so that's not anything new. I basically decided on Cocos because my first choice was the Galapagos, but I have yet to buy my dry suit and take a class with it. I've already taken GUE fundamentals part 1, but I won't take part two until I'm ready to do it with a drysuit and possibly doubles, and I didn't want to rush into anything in a compressed time frame.

I'm set up for a spot on the Okeanos Aggressor from August 19-29th. I'm pretty excited. :-D

Awesome! I know you will have an awesome time and I hope you post us a trip report when you get back! Sounds like you are prepped! Stoked for you @Satrekker

 

[Trailboss123]

Initially, I was simply thinking about heading over to W. Palm and drift diving for a week or more with a few Emerald charters shark dives sprinkled in, but after more consideration, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do a liveaboard, since it's not anything I'd ever book for both me and my wife, since she doesn't dive. T&C looked like a very nice dive, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do more of a bucket list dive, but something in this hemisphere. PNG and Indonesia have some fantastic, remote sites from what I've read, but due to travel time, it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me since my window is less than 14 days. I did briefly research Socorros, but Cocos seemed a bit more remote, so I went that route.

Plus-- August isn't the optimal time for Socorros. Want to do that in December-March timeframe.

 

[Stoo]

I would not hesitate to do a Caribbean liveaboard in August. Turks and Caicos or Caymans.

I used to feel that way, until I basically wasted thousands of dollars. The folks that were on the boat the week of the hurricane received a credit towards another week. We got squat (not saying we should have) but even near the end of the week, visibility was extremely limited and most reefs were entirely covered in sand. Most of our dives were spend fanning sand off of corals and sponges... They looked like I imagine a foret does right after a forest fire... only white! Fish were almost non-existent. I imagine they moved out to deeper water temporarily.

I appreciate that the odds are not huge you'll be nailed with a hurricane, but it should be a consideration. The second time, we booked early in July and it was perfect!

 

[Stoo]

Seeing a pipehorse in the T&C may also be a once in a life time event?

Ya mean like this one?

 

[KeithG]

Ya mean like this one?

View attachment 419489

Nope - that is Fred. We saw Jim AND Jane.

 

[peeweediver]

Great choice with Cocos. We went last September and the shop is going again August 2018. We went with Undersea Hunter. Some advice if I may: Get some warm water gloves. Our boat almost required them. You'll be holding onto rocks on every dive and by the end, most of my finger coverings were worn away. Reef hooks were not recommended by the boat but it's all rocks so holding on is fine. Two: Get nitrox certified if you're not: Most dives are to 90-100 and nitrox is essential for quality bottom time. Not sure about Aggressor but the UH gave every diver a good GPS. Why: two of our group got blown off on decent due to very strong current. Deployed their SMB at 20 feet and it went straight sideways. Never broke the surface. When they surfaced, they triggered the GPS and were picked up within 10 minutes. They were so far away that the tender would not have seen the SMB. I hope Aggressor gives them out as well. Lastly, my wife who never gets sea sick, spent the whole 36 hours trip out there being sick. Bring something just in case.
It was a trip of a lifetime. On at least 4 dives, I had 20+ hammers swimming right past me and over me. I could count the teeth on the ones going over me and hug the ones going past me. Honest. Enjoy every minute!!

Rob