Tjack
Contributor
- Messages
- 998
- Reaction score
- 191
- # of dives
- 500 - 999
Blackbeard's makes for an excellent first live aboard, a real adventure.
Picking a Caribbean Live-Aboard
- Thread starter drrich2
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
DeputyDan
Contributor
The Dancer boat in Belize is a good first liveaboard experience.
You will be fine!
Next up for me is the EV boat that includes Saba for the week.
You will be fine!
Next up for me is the EV boat that includes Saba for the week.
Hintermann
Contributor
- Messages
- 1,049
- Reaction score
- 317
- Location
- Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, UK
- # of dives
- 500 - 999
I have been on 3 Caribbean Liveaboards and liked all of them.
1. Turks & Caicos Aggressor: Best of the lot. The boat itself is OK at best but the crew was by some distance the best of all the 18 liveaboard cruises that I have been so far around the world. The diving was also superb, certainly the best in the Caribbean and surrounds. Night diving in particular, was exceptional.
2. Belize Aggressor: The boat was superior to the other two and the crew was quite good. The day diving was good rather than exceptional but at night, as with most of the Caribbean, the diving was excellent.
3. Cayman Aggressor: The boat was the least well maintained of the 3 but the crew were very good. The diving was a mixed bag: Just good around Grand Cayman but certainly exceptional in Little Cayman and to some extent in Cayman Brac.
I think people are sometimes unfair when they compare Caribbean diving unfavourably with the Indo-Pacific. Granted, the I-P has more diverse and colourful marine life for day dives, but there are some areas where the Caribbean reefs have the edge. For a start, there is far less coral bleaching and fishing related coral damage in the Caribbean. Then for liveaboard divers, there is the great convenience of all dives in the Caribbean being from the mother ship while in the Indo-Pacific, it is mostly off a tender or dinghy. But for me the biggest difference in favour of the Caribbean is with night diving; I never miss a night dive and have found that night dives in the Caribbean are much more active and rewarding.
1. Turks & Caicos Aggressor: Best of the lot. The boat itself is OK at best but the crew was by some distance the best of all the 18 liveaboard cruises that I have been so far around the world. The diving was also superb, certainly the best in the Caribbean and surrounds. Night diving in particular, was exceptional.
2. Belize Aggressor: The boat was superior to the other two and the crew was quite good. The day diving was good rather than exceptional but at night, as with most of the Caribbean, the diving was excellent.
3. Cayman Aggressor: The boat was the least well maintained of the 3 but the crew were very good. The diving was a mixed bag: Just good around Grand Cayman but certainly exceptional in Little Cayman and to some extent in Cayman Brac.
I think people are sometimes unfair when they compare Caribbean diving unfavourably with the Indo-Pacific. Granted, the I-P has more diverse and colourful marine life for day dives, but there are some areas where the Caribbean reefs have the edge. For a start, there is far less coral bleaching and fishing related coral damage in the Caribbean. Then for liveaboard divers, there is the great convenience of all dives in the Caribbean being from the mother ship while in the Indo-Pacific, it is mostly off a tender or dinghy. But for me the biggest difference in favour of the Caribbean is with night diving; I never miss a night dive and have found that night dives in the Caribbean are much more active and rewarding.
Rich;
Belize was outstanding from my point of view. Either the Dancer or the Aggressor. Dancer has more space in the cabin and in my opinion better food and staff. Diving is excellent especially if they choose to bypass the blue hole and to have 2 additional dives.
Cheers...
Belize was outstanding from my point of view. Either the Dancer or the Aggressor. Dancer has more space in the cabin and in my opinion better food and staff. Diving is excellent especially if they choose to bypass the blue hole and to have 2 additional dives.
Cheers...
kerrycorcoran
Contributor
Please tell me folks plan to keep submitting to this thread! I am researching all I can to plan my first live aboard. Still working on the wife, but she'll come around. Her main issue is that we have a restroom in our cabin. Lol.
I'm with your wife on that one, not only a restroom but also a shower! When we were on the T&C Aggressor in 2013 the toilet was in the shower and the sink was in our bedroom - but at least we had an ensuite bathroom so I was happy!
Last edited:
Shasta_man
Contributor
interesting perspective on Pacific vs Caribbean diving in the earlier post: I thought the tender/skiff arrangement was a positive over diving from the mothership because, besides being a very large object over me during the dive, the compressors etc on the main ship make a lot of noise. I could also pick out a skiff coming towards me when I'm coming toward the surface, so I don't get run over, which was hard to pick out against the noise from the mothership. Night diving in the Pacific was better for me as well as I saw everything in the book, but particularly because I never got zapped on the surface by the jellies that seem to be so prevalent in the Caribbean. My Caribbean experience in St Croix taught me to never stay on the surface after one woman came back from her night dive shaking and throwing up from getting a wide swath of tentacles on her face and leg. We were even getting zapped by small jellies while waiting on the hang bar before surfacing. It would be interesting to know if that is typical. Seems like it must not be.
Hi Richard,
I had a similar decision last year; my dive buddy and I picked Belize Aggressor (but having been there and watched the boats operate on the dive sites and in port, you can't really go wrong with Dancer vs. Aggressor ... either will be fine). We liked it so much we're doing it again this summer; just because the time that we could go and the availability (August) pointed us back to Belize and the Aggressor.
The only live aboard I had done before was M/V Spree out of Key West (very highly recommended by the way).
I had a similar decision last year; my dive buddy and I picked Belize Aggressor (but having been there and watched the boats operate on the dive sites and in port, you can't really go wrong with Dancer vs. Aggressor ... either will be fine). We liked it so much we're doing it again this summer; just because the time that we could go and the availability (August) pointed us back to Belize and the Aggressor.
The only live aboard I had done before was M/V Spree out of Key West (very highly recommended by the way).
BDSC
Contributor
Assuming you are not prone to motion sickness, you will love liveaboard diving. Did my first one a few years ago and now we try and do at least one every year. We are doing the NAIA in Fiji next month, going to Cocos on the Undersea Hunter in December, doing the Caribbean Explorer II to Saba/St. Kitts next year, and have the Rocio Del Mar for the Sea of Cortez in 2017. Of course we mix in a lot of land based trips as well. I think once you go on one, you'll be hooked!
Richard, the Turks & Caicos Explorer was a great boat and the diving was excellent as was the crew and food. You should definitely fit that one in at some point. We also did the Aquacat, and while the boat, crew, and food were really good, the diving was average at best and in some areas it was quite poor. I'm glad I did the Aquacat because I had always read about them but I would not do that trip again because of the quality of the diving. Not their fault but there is no reason to think it's going to improve anytime soon.
Similar threads
