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From Chris Sanders and Dave Barnhart . . .
Cindy asked Dave and I to forward a dive report, and god knows it won't happen after we get back. So, as I sit with a cold one in front of me waiting thru the 24hr before flying, I thought I'd send it to you to forward to Cindy. Feel free to copy Pete if you like. Never having submitted Dive Log before, this will list daily sites, max depth and total dive time, and days highlights. Dive prior to Night Dive was always quick to keep nitrogen down. What we can tell you in summation is this:
First-class crew, professional, knowledgeable, hot showers on dive platform, 3000+psi fills every dive, great accommodations, tons of great food, and who could ask for anything more than a warm towel and hot chocolate on the dive deck after the night dive. The only complaint was that the Nitrox compressor motor died, so the whole week was on air. Highly recommend Belize Aggressor without any hesitation, don't even consider any other operator, we will definitely be coming back. Chris, (a.k.a. Pirate of the Caribbean)
It's Sunday, I'm home...(physically anyway) adding my two cents. Chris, who shall henceforth be known as the "Pirate of the Caribbean", speaks the truth about the accommodations, the crew and the boat. Many of our shipmates are veteran world divers and return to the Aggressor III often. We didn't have one bad dive, only good and great! And speaking as the ships food disposal unit, the food was great. I'll leave Chris's Times and depths, as mine were virtually identical and just add comments. Visibility was difficult to estimate for a couple of quarry divers. It was so far off our scale, we guessed! Finally, Speaking for Chris and myself: the phrase "What would John and Pete say" came up often. A tribute to fine instruction! Dave (a.k.a. Capt. Nemo)
Saturday, 7/24/2004
Dave and I arrive separately in Belize City, Belize, C.A. We are booked on Belize Aggressor III for a week's worth of bubble blowing and fish chasing. We meet 15 other shipmates and have departure briefing, and leave for Long Caye Island on Lighthouse Reef.
Sunday, 7/25/2004: First full day at sea
#1...Long Caye Wall, 59min., 104fsw
#2...Long Caye Wall, 58min., 84fsw
#3...Silver Caves, 75min., 74fsw
#4...Silver Caves, 40min., 53fsw
#5...Night Dive...Silver Caves, 66min., 40fsw
Awesome first day, we surfaced and couldn't wipe the smile from our faces. Our first exposure to wall diving [oh my god], 100'+ viz., Loggerhead turtle, 'cudas, parrotfish, triggers, all sorts of bugs, squid, spotted moray, obnoxious tarpons, banded shrimp, Drummer fish, puffers. Discover visual navigation and confirmed compass skills: hey! We're pretty good at it.
Monday, 7/26/2004: Day two at sea, adopted a third... dive buddy. Which is not a problem in 100'-200' viz!
#1...Dos Cocos, 48min., 135fsw
#2...Dos Cocos, 75min., 35 fsw
#3...Tarpon Caves. 50 min., 111fsw
#4...Tarpon Caves, 46min., 52fsw
#5...Night Dive...Tarpon Caves, 53min., 48fsw
Wall diving rocks!! Combine that with caves that open into the void and you never want to leave! early AM dive on a wall is the only way to start the day. small octopus, Christmas tree fans, first photo dive for Chris [great for developing good buoyancy, bad for air consumption], baby green moray, chimney cave dive [1st lesson learned: never let someone smaller than you choose the cave!!...I don't know what Chris is talking about:)], awesome queen trigger, mating conches(yup & it's hilarious), baby 30" stingray, massive groupers, landed on stingray on night-dive, tarpon still obnoxious.
Tuesday, 7/27/2004: Day three at sea. Only four dives today since we visited Half Moon Caye to see the Red Footed Booby birds after the Blue Hole.
#1...Blue Hole, 61min, 138fsw
#2...Half Moon Caye, 62min., 60fsw
#3...Half Moon Caye, 35min., 49fsw
#4...Night Dive...Dos Cocos, 62min., 42fsw
Blue Hole is over-rated, it was cool with the stalactites, but definitely need to be able to go deeper to really get under shelves, took lots of hang time in the shallows which was okay since we found gold-spotted moray and several baby octopus. Half Moon Caye was great: 'lots of barracuda, spotted eagle ray, glimpse of black-tip sharks, spotted moray, gigantic blue, parrotfish. Night dive: Octopus, found and chased 2, Dave got attached by one and shall hence forth be known as "Nemo" [as in Captain] good pics, lots of color-shifting, awesome experience. Lesson learned; octopuses are really curious and if you stick your face in his face, he'll investigate!
Wednesday, 7/28/2004: Day four at sea. Dave has still not learned to keep his distance when peaking under a coral formation. Chris burns a lot of air laughing!
#1...Cathedral, 69min., 61fsw
#2...Cathedral, 54min., 28fsw
#3...Aquarium, 64min., 79fsw
#4...Painted Wall, 34min., 17fsw
#5...Night Dive, Painted Wall, 75min., 35fsw
Cathedral: fantastic swim-thru's opening up to great blue nothingness over wall. Aquarium: nudibranches everywhere, massive schools of color swirling around and huge groupers. Painted Wall was coral central, crustaceans everywhere, found huge green moray, massive puffer under shelf at night--Surprise!, beautiful snake eel.
Thursday, 7/29/2004: Day five at sea (a Pirate is born!)
#1...Chain Wall, 75min., 35fsw
#2...Chain Wall, 61min., 97fsw
#3...Quebrada, 57min., 86fsw
#4...Quebrada., 34min., 32fsw
#5...Quebrade, 46min., 28fsw, 7:17pm
#6...Quebrada, 22min, 26fsw, 11:44pm (Chris only! Dave had better things to do!)
Chain Wall: went east to find wall, bad directions, wall was to west, not to worry, cool 3" clear jellies, awesome rockfish [blink gave him away]. Dave had a large lobster try to teach him not to play with the wildlife, Dave still hasn't learned! Second dive found the wall, awesome. Didn't find anything of note but who cares it was a great wall dive. Quebrada: 8' green moray was amazing, great all around dive. Dive #6 was the creation of new potential class call Ninja Diving, not recommended for the sober. Combination of Night Diving [without any lights], Underwater Navigation, Diver Propulsion Vehicle, and Boat Diving. Basically consisted of someone coming up with the bright idea to get suited up, take Torpedo's [which I had never operated], get in water, travel 500-600 yards at 20' without lights to another ship which shall remain nameless, hide under their dive deck while accomplice stealthily boards said vessel, goes to 2nd deck and steals their boat flag, and return to the mother-ship without lights without being detection. Sucked down 1000psi in 10min on the way back laughing. Trophy will stay in dive trunk 'til return trip next year.
Friday, 7/30/2004: Day six at sea, our last on this trip
#1...Amberhead, 79min., 82fsw
#2...Amberhead, 64min., 80fsw
Bittersweet. Great dives, not so much wall as slope, but again, who cares,it's Belize. Tons to see and just really hard to get out that last time. Rinsed gear, returned to Belize City, went to dinner at Macy's [local hole-in-the wall, highly recommend], came back to BAIII, got drunk, smokes stogies, and told tales.
Fantastic trip.
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