We were on T/C Explorer II last year. It's a great trip, especially for larger stuff. Especially off West Caicos and French Cay. FC might have been the best diving I've done in the last 5 years and I've been to most of the highly rated Carib locations. Every dive were sharks, turtles, barracuda, so many stingrays it was boring, basketball sized lionfish, :depressed: larger grouper and since the boat moors on a shallow plateau near the wall most dives, it was even interesting around all the coral heads/fish nurseries just under the boat. We had a macro photographer on board and I often saw his legs sticking out from under one. He got some amazing shots of stuff I've never seen before (of course the dual housed Canon DSLR's slightly helped..) One night baitfish were attracted by the ships lights with bigger pelagics (jacks?) feeding on them. Near the end of the dive 4-5 sharks started feeding on them - at the other end of the boat.
A really good idea of what to expect - thanks to Mike Southard:
Saudio's Trip Reports
The boat is big, it has a third deck behind the fly-bridge - covered with benches - they stock drinks up there also since it's two flights of stairs from the main deck. Larger (than other liveaboards we've done) rooms with real beds and windows - no bunks except in the 4? lower deck cabins - ours had enough space for a 4' square desk (inside camera table...lol). Even the bathrooms were good sized just the shower was a little short. Food was good as is typical and the crew was very accommodating. They also vent the compressor air up thru the wetsuit hanging area - since I dive in a t-shirt my stuff was often dry after lunch.
One interesting feature is the boat swings on the mooring
a lot. They'll warn you about it but until you've watched the ladder go by once or twice you don't get the concept of how
fast it does. Just drop back down and watch for the shadow, it'll come by again in a few minutes. Trying to catch it is futile as I learned the hard way. Also it's swinging nearer and farther to the wall when you're waiting to jump - time it wrong and it's a much longer swim. I learned after a few days to wait till the DM said go.
If there was one downside, I would have preferred to skip the NW Point (Provo) diving since the other locations were so much better. It wasn't bad diving but we didn't really see a lot until we moved to West Caicos. The walls are just coral encrusted deeper than you can dive. And it's really clear blue water - like the Bahamas or Cayman - the kind where you strain to see 200' into the blue. We don't normally repeat destinations but I'd do T/C again. I think it's better than any Cayman or Bahamas diving I've done.
We also took advantage of one of their specials (in May) and saved $400pp. Allowed us to get a better room on the main deck than we'd planned. If you go be sure to ask Stan the chef if he's dove yet...something like 20+ years and he never has. Oh, and the airport really sucks. There's free wi-fi in the restaurant but the main seating area is large, crowded and it seemed like they boarded all the flights within an hour of each other starting around noon. Thru 4 gates 20' apart. So listen carefully for yours.