Nekton Cruise

Hello All,

Has anyone taken a cruise with Nekton. Please share your thoughts on the cruise, the staff, the organization, the food, the service, the diving...in other words anything you care to shear.

Thanks,
Greg

I’ve done two trips with Nekton and will do a trip with them again this year. Following are my good, bad and general comments:

Good
1. I love the big dive deck and the big stable boat.
2. Plenty of room on the camera table and a couple of air compressor lines to blow the camera off.
3. Steel 95 tanks! These mean long bottom time and less lead needed in the BC weight pockets.
4. Did I say how stable the boats are?
5. You are allowed to dive your own profiles. A divemaster is happy to go with you and if no one wants the assist a divemaster is usually in the water doing their thing.

Bad
1. The boats could stand some work. Example, some of the doors are hard to open or close.
2. Nitrox can be hit or miss.

General comments
1. I like the food. I’ve seen some people upset with it. The selection is not great, but you will not go hungry. If you have a special need just let them know.
2. For the most part I’ve been happy with the crews. Don’t expect back rubs; do expect help getting in and out of the water and proper handling of your equipment. If your not happy about something let the Captain know about it.
3. Dive sites will vary. The captain will work to find you the best diving in the area of the boat. Caribbean diving is Caribbean diving.
4. If you do a search on this site for Nekton you will get many pages of information

agwatts:

Hello All,

Has anyone taken a cruise with Nekton. Please share your thoughts on the cruise, the staff, the organization, the food, the service, the diving...in other words anything you care to shear.

Thanks,
Greg

Click to expand...

Greg - you should use the Search button as there are dozens and dozens of reports right here on this site, including my 2 trip reports.

Hi Robin,

Thanks for the heads up on the Nekton...truth be told, I'm leaving on 1/26 to become a "newbie" instructor aboard the Pilot.

Thanks,
Greg

Greg,

I'll be on the Pilot for the Jan. 31 trip to St. Croix. It'll be my second Nekton trip. I'll see you there.

Ron

Good luck Greg. I certainly hope you have better luck than I did working on the Nekton. The crew quarters are not well maintianed to say the least. The carpet was moldy. The air conditioner pipes sweat all over the room constantly. The toilet rarely worked properly. You have almost no space for any equipment or clothes so don't take anything extra. I liked the food a lot though the kitchen floor was so greasy you could hardly walk on it.

The worst part however was the lack of diving. I think it may have changed but they didn't encourage instructors to go diving very often. In fact, I only dove 3 times one week and was still told I must have too much idle time.

The boats are really old and break a lot. Often the passengers don't know what is going on but you'll see what I mean. There are few modern electronic controls and much of the ship is old mechanic stuff that just seem to fail frequently. The water makers are totally manual and you need to watch carefully that they don't overflow and flood the engine rooms. I was only there for 3 weeks but in that time the first mate and chief engineer both quit after only being there a couple of weeks. One of the engineers was a young kid they literally found sleeping in his car in Ft. Lauderdale. The turnover is very quick for the most part though some people stick it out.

One thing different about this boat than many others is you night watch duties. Depending upon the number of crew members, you may have to work several 4 hours shifts in the middle of the night. You walk the boat and climb down into both engine rooms which are several feet under water at least once per hour. You check for problems and leaks. There are other duties expected during these night watches also. When I was there, some crew members were excempt from this duty meaning we picked up the slack.

I loved being busy and enjoyed the guests. I didn't however like the turnaround each week. Only some crew were allowed off on Friday night for a few hours. The rest of us stayed on Friday night as well as Saturday morning and early afternoon. They tried to get you off for 4 hours. That is hardly time to get a hair cut, do banking, make calls or do whatever. Many liveaboards had crews that clean the reprovision the boat on weekends but the Nekton did not.

The owners are nice enough and easy to talk too if needed. I don't think they put enough into maintainance however. I suspect the captain I had has been replaced.

Yikes....what a discouraging insider's perspective of Nekton.

I don't know how long ago NcChuck worked on the Nekton. As a one-time passenger, I didn't get any behind-the-curtain look at the crew quarters, etc.

I can say that I was particularly impressed by what looked like a very high morale among the crew. They seemed to get along very well and to be happy to be there. I understand that that's part of their job, but I've been on dive boats where the crew seemed to be just putting in their time and wishing they were somewhere else.

One other thing that I noticed was the way that everyone seemed to pitch in. I was especially surprised to frequently see the captain helping out folding towels, picking up empty glasses, etc.

Bottom line, it looked to me like the crew enjoyed their job.

Ron

ncchuck - have you every been happy anywhere? It seems to me that every post I read from you has a very negative spin.

robin

I remember the crew members as being a happy crew for both my trips.

Yes, the carpet is not what you would expect in a 5 star hotel, and pipes will sweat and drip water, but its a dive boat. For a crew member to say their quarters are not well cared for is like a cook saying they don't like their own cooking.

Sorry that some people think I'm being negative when I tell my side of the stories. I love diving as much as any of you and became a professional for that very reason. That doesn't mean everything is perfect. I personally think it's useful to hear the good and not so good about peoples trips and experiences. Some posters on this forum only discuss the great things they feel about boats or resorts and I like reading them. I however know there is almost always more to the story. There are many posts on this forum where one person enjoys a trip and another hates it. Readers make their own interpretations. The vast majority of my posts have been very positive and reflective of my personal experiences. I must have indicated a hundred times that I love liveaboards for instance and highly recommend them. I've never made a single negative comment about one as a guest.

I did not indicate that there was no value in diving on the Nekton. For passengers it offers many advantages including large cabins, good food and typically enthusiastic crews. While I had several truthful observations, I did enjoy much of the experience. Working with other crew members was really fun. Everyone usually pitched in to help each other out. I loved the interaction with guest. I still correspond with some of them. I liked the long hours and variety of tasks. I've been on at least 7 other liveaboards as a guest. I've talked extensively with the crews and viewed their quarters and discussed their duties. All of them dive more often, have more time off and have cleaner facilities.

My experience on the Nekton was in early 2006. As I indicated, others left the boat while I was there and they spent less time on it than I did. The chief engineer told me he was going to have a nervous breakdown if he didn't get off because of the responsibilities he had with the older systems on the boat. He had worked on the boat for a few years earlier but this time he only made it one week. This are not complaints, they are facts as I saw them. One other fact came to light about 6 months after I left the boat. A law suit was filed against the owners for wage an hour violations. I did not participate but it was alleged that Instructors were being hired to act almost exclusively as deck hands. I'm sure this was a result of the amount of diving promised versus the reality. Again, I did not participate since I had no bitterness about my time there even though it wasn't perfect.

I noticed someone suggested mold and dripping pipes was normal. I've never seen it on another boat. Yes, salt water takes it's toll. Rust is common as is some amount of dirt and grime. Actually the guest quarters got all new carpet during our dry dock but the crew quarters were not touched. I actually pulled some carpet out of the dumpster and replaced the carpet in my cabin myself. I had to scrap off the old carpet as it was held in place by a huge buildup of black mold. Sorry but that is a fact and it was disgusting.

I'm thankful for this forum and the freedom to give our opinions and observations so others can use them any way they find useful or not.