A Tale of Two Atolls: a Trip Report on the Belize Aggressor III, 18-25 November 2017

[scubafanatic]

How do you use YouTube videos to research, vet, and choose dive operations?

Trip Advisor certainly has its flaws and limitations, but those flaws and limitations do not render it useless. As with any source of information on the Internet, one should compare and combine it with other sources. Also, I think that the practice of censorship to which you alluded may be more of an issue for hotels and resorts than it is for dive operations, which are less likely to take bookings through Trip Advisor (for which I presume that Trip Advisor receives a commision).

I have found plenty of negative reviews of dive operations on Trip Advisor that I used to rule out candidates. For example, one dive operation that Scubaboard members recommended to me had some significant safety and customer service issues that credible Trip Advisor reviewers mentioned on a recurring basis; I would not have learned about them if I had relied solely on Scubaboard. Hence my desire to use multiple sources to vet dive operations, taking into consideration the biases and limitations of each source.

YouTube is great for seeing many different samples of what the diving is actually like...water clarity...reef conditions......animal types, quantities....what the boats are like...the dive shop...etc. I'm not interested in seeing colorful promotional WWW sites that actually show how the diving was way back in the 1970's, representing long-extinct reef conditions, fish populations....I want to screen out the dead, rubble reefs with no fish life, so I need to really see how things are currently, not propaganda and Photoshop.

 

[scubafanatic]

On the subject of DiveZone.net, by the way, I sent them this e-mail (based on a page telling me - To contact us please send an email to hello@divezone.net. We will get back to you as soon as possible!):

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Hi:
I was looking at your review page on the Belize Aggressor III at MV Belize Aggressor III Liveaboard Review – Belize, Dive Boat Reviews and saw the rating & votes, 4/5 with 7 votes I think. I clicked on the stars, which on some sites takes one to reviews. I think it then said 3.8/5 stars based on 8 votes.
Yet lower on the page still says 4/5 based on 7.
Anyway, I have not been on that boat, and I was NOT trying to rate it, especially not a LOW rating. If I somehow voted it ‘down’ the evening of Dec. 16, 2017, please remove my miss-vote. Thanks!
Richard.
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Got this back very quickly:
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Hi Divezone reader,

First, we would like to thank you for your interest in Divezone! We work very hard to provide quality content and reliable information to the scuba diving community!

However, it is not possible for us to offer a personalized information nor booking service. The best way to have your questions answered would be to publish a comment at the bottom of the page related to your question (destination page, dive site page, blog post, etc.).

Indeed, by doing so you will be answered either by a Divezone representative or by a scuba diver from our big community! Plus, the information will then be accessible to everyone, which is convenient!

Thank you for understanding, and we hope to read your comments on Divezone soon!

Happy bubbles!

The Divezone Team.
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Unless we hear more, I'm a little leery of what to make of their ratings.

Richard.

Their auto response algorithm still needs a bit of work. Don't worry though, I'll cast maybe a dozen '5 star' votes over there to pretty much cancel out your accidental negative review, so you owe me one!

 

[scubafanatic]

In a way though, it's probably better for me at least, that many folks either don't do research, or rely on flawed research sources, which gets them out of my way so they don't clog up the quality dive ops / boats / locations and bid up the prices I pay for MY trips, I certainly don't mind them 'taking one for the team'!

 

[traveljunkie]

Thanks for the lengthy review. I also tend to over research and write lengthy reviews. lol

I have considered a liveaboard multiple times but have always seen enough bad reviews about them to stay away from them. I would be willing to do one in what I would consider a "bucket list region" or a place that is so remote a liveaboard is your only option.

I am surprised to hear how unimpressive the Turneffe sites were. I have been seeing that Turneffe pales in comparison to Lighthouse the last few months but was skeptical for the same reasons you stated. Maybe "The Elbow" is the main site the magazines and photographers dive that gives Turneffe its allure and reputation.

 

[salth2owannabe]

I am surprised to hear how unimpressive the Turneffe sites were. I have been seeing that Turneffe pales in comparison to Lighthouse the last few months but was skeptical for the same reasons you stated. Maybe "The Elbow" is the main site the magazines and photographers dive that gives Turneffe its allure and reputation.

I wouldn't judge Turneffe by what the folks with Aggressor get to see of it, they only see a small portion. I've done about 40 dives around Turneffe and many sites are very good. If the weather or currents don't cooperate they can't dive the Elbow either as they are passing by. I would agree that the sites around Lighthouse I've seen are probably better but don't discount Turneffe.

 

[Ironborn]

I wouldn't judge Turneffe by what the folks with Aggressor get to see of it, they only see a small portion. I've done about 40 dives around Turneffe and many sites are very good. If the weather or currents don't cooperate they can't dive the Elbow either as they are passing by. I would agree that the sites around Lighthouse I've seen are probably better but don't discount Turneffe.

@salth2owannabe Would you say that many or some sites that we dove on the BAIII that week were sub-par or below average in quality, relative to what Turneffe has to offer? I have listed them below according to my assessment of their quality, from highest to lowest. I have more details on my observations in my report. We saw quite a bit of Turneffe, since we only spent a day and a half at Lighthouse Reef.

Fabian's Roost
Johnny's Wrench
Grand Bogue
Amberhead
Sandy Slope
Black Beauty
Front Porch

 

[Ironborn]

Interesting to see different approaches to researching reviews. I personally read from worst (1 star) to best (5 star). I want to know what is the worst thing a business has done, and see if there are any trends.

@Dogbowl That is another advantage of Trip Advisor - you can immediately pull up the negative reviews (which I often do first) and see what if any bad things anyone has to say about the business. You can then decide how credible those claims are (e.g. do several credible reviewers repeat them, or is it just one person with few or no prior reviews?) and whether or not they are dealbreakers for you (if they are credible).

 

[salth2owannabe]

@salth2owannabe Would you say that many or some sites that we dove on the BAIII that week were sub-par or below average in quality, relative to what Turneffe has to offer? I have listed them below according to my assessment of their quality, from highest to lowest. I have more details on my observations in my report. We saw quite a bit of Turneffe, since we only spent a day and a half at Lighthouse Reef.

From what I've seen the Aggressor uses the moorings on the bottom south east corner of Turneffe, which as memory serves is where all of the dive sites you listed are at. ( I don't recognize a few of the names) From the east cut, north-east of TIR (front porch) south to about Myrtles turtles (just north-east of the Elbow). The Elbow is hands down the best site I have dove on Turneffe and it appears you guys didn't get to dive that one. In my opinion some of the dive sites north of the cut along that wall are better than going south. There are also some sites on the west side that I don't believe Aggressor dives as well. "Better" being subjective, the west side dive sites are different, in that the topography varies and offers more sand benches with coral heads.
I'm curious if you had some weather that week as I thought the Aggressor spent more time around Half Moon and Lighthouse? If the crossing is rough and the wind is out of the west, they will tuck in behind Turneffe and dive those sites on the east side waiting for it to clear up.
From the handful of sites I have dove around Half Moon and Lighthouse I was pretty impressed.
Appreciate the thorough review of your experience.

 

[Ironborn]

From what I've seen the Aggressor uses the moorings on the bottom south east corner of Turneffe, which as memory serves is where all of the dive sites you listed are at. ( I don't recognize a few of the names) From the east cut, north-east of TIR (front porch) south to about Myrtles turtles (just north-east of the Elbow). The Elbow is hands down the best site I have dove on Turneffe and it appears you guys didn't get to dive that one. In my opinion some of the dive sites north of the cut along that wall are better than going south. There are also some sites on the west side that I don't believe Aggressor dives as well. "Better" being subjective, the west side dive sites are different, in that the topography varies and offers more sand benches with coral heads.
I'm curious if you had some weather that week as I thought the Aggressor spent more time around Half Moon and Lighthouse? If the crossing is rough and the wind is out of the west, they will tuck in behind Turneffe and dive those sites on the east side waiting for it to clear up.
From the handful of sites I have dove around Half Moon and Lighthouse I was pretty impressed.
Appreciate the thorough review of your experience.

We reached Lighthouse Reef later than usual (based on my reading of the BAIII logs on the Aggressor website) because of the generator failure that forced us to return to port on the afternoon of the first day. That return to port not only cost us some dives, but also led us back to Turneffe for more dives once we left port again; based on my reading of the logs, the BAIII would normally be at Lighthouse Reef by that point in the week. Once we did reach Lighthouse Reef and after we spent a day and a half there, we then had to leave Lighthouse Reef earlier than usual because of weather and head back to Turneffe.

In subsequent discussions with Aggressor Fleet, they claimed that some of the southern sites on Turneffe had suffered some damage from Hurricane Earl last year. That may be the case, but there were clearly some other factors that had nothing to do with hurricanes, such as fishing, lionfish infestation, and algae growth.

I realize that quality is subjective, but I think that many of the things that I observed on these Turneffe sites would detract from a diving experience for most other Caribbean vacation divers, e.g. poor visibility, large amounts of dead coral, algae-covered reefs, and a dearth of non-lionfish marine life. I compared notes with other guests, and their observations were comparable to mine.

 

[drrich2]

@Dogbowl That is another advantage of Trip Advisor - you can immediately pull up the negative reviews (which I often do first) and see what if any bad things anyone has to say about the business. You can then decide how credible those claims are (e.g. do several credible reviewers repeat them, or is it just one person with few or no prior reviews?) and whether or not they are dealbreakers for you (if they are credible).

True. One thing I caution is that when people venture out more broadly into diving, be mindful of the local dive culture when you judge Trip Advisor reviews. For example, you may see a review criticizing a dive op. because the crew didn't assign dive buddies on the boat. In some areas, that's not a normal thing to do, but someone only accustomed to Caribbean tourist-focused day boat diving might not know that.

Richard.