I just returned from a stay aboard the Bahamas Aggressor for their Tiger Beach itinerary.
The short version is it was an excellent trip that far exceeded my expectations. The boat is in great shape, the crew was top notch and worked well together, and the food was great. The diving gave us all the shark fix we could ask for. I would definitely do the trip again.
Just to put my review into perspective, this is my 8th live aboard, and 6th with Aggressor/Dancer Fleet.
We were on the BA from 08/04-08/11/18. The crew was Captain Christy, Chef Sara, and crewmembers Rob, Josh, Rachael, and Sophia.
The boat. I had some reservations about choosing this itinerary and ship, knowing that it used to be the Carib Dancer, which had horrible reviews just a few years ago when it joined Dancer Fleet. From doors falling off the bathrooms, to a chef quitting mid trip, the reviews were bad.
While the BA is an older vessel, I found it clean and functioning well. Aggressor definitely put some money into it to bring it up to the high standards that Aggressor Fleet is known for.
My only complaint would be the water pressure was a bit low as you moved forward in the ship. In room #2, we could only get the water to project about 6 inches from the showerhead. Pressure was much better on the dive platform. Some guests complained that their rooms felt hot, but after Engineer Josh explained that the AC works best to cool the ship when we leave our room doors open and bathroom fans on, doing that definitely made a difference. At night, you just close your door and cool it as normal without the fan on. I was comfortable.
The crew. The crew genuinely seemed to enjoy their jobs and did so enthusiastically. You barely had to lift a finger. They were fun to be around and joked amongst themselves and with the passengers. The crew was just the right mix of being safety conscious while letting divers dive their plans.
Captain Christy was great. On a couple sites when crewmembers reported strong currents when tying up the boat, she moved to a different site, or organized an impromptu drift dive to make the customers’ dives more enjoyable. She also free dived for fresh conch and lionfish for us to eat.
We had one snorkeler on our boat, and the crew helped put her at ease by snorkeling with her several times at shark sites. And yes, you can still snorkel with sharks below and next to you.
The food. The food was excellent. Chef Sara has a mac and cheese recipe that you need to try. Not your typical Kraft out of the box. I’m a pretty picky eater, but I never had a meal that I didn’t like. Her banana pancakes, cinnamon crepes, banana bread, and bread pudding were outstanding.
The diving. Sharks. You will see sharks. Lots of them. We saw sharks on all but 2-3 dives out of the 26 offered during the week. The best shark action is at Shark Paradise, which you will visit about 9 times. By about the 7th dive there, we started to get a little tired of the site, as it is basically just a sandy bottom at 35 feet with a small patch of reef next to it. A pyramid-shaped box holding bait is lowered below the boat about 5-15 feet above the sand, and that draws the sharks in. We saw lemon, reef, nurse and one tiger shark during our week. Even with the frequent stops at Shark Paradise, you will want to go there multiple times. I used the opportunity to really hone my photo skills of taking great shots of fast moving large subjects. You can swim around with the sharks if you want, which I did, but also take some time and just park yourself in the sand and shoot up towards the boat for some great contrasting shots. The only rules are don’t touch the sharks or the scent triangle. You are pretty much free to swim around or just sit and watch the show as you please. It is not the strict “You must kneel in the sand” type of dives you see at shark feedings.
Capt. Christy kept Shark Paradise from feeling like we were wearing it out by sandwiching our lunch between a pair of dives there. So, we would normally do a deeper (deeper being about 70-80 feet) dive in the morning, do a dive at Shark Paradise, eat lunch, do another dive at Shark Paradise, and then move to our afternoon site which also would be our night dive site. Note that it doesn’t get dark until about 9PM in August, so the night dive is more a dusk dive to start and it ends being dark. The Sugar Wreck was our favorite night dive. Tons of turtles!
After the second dive at Shark Paradise, the crew feeds the bait to the sharks off the dive platform. This is a great topside photo and video opportunity.
For the dive days, we did 5 dives Sunday-Thursday, and one dive Friday morning, for a total of 26 possible dives.
We had 84* F water while we were there with calm seas. On one day, we had some 3-foot waves, but this week was some of the calmest water I’ve dived in. No one got sick and Capt. Christy moved the boat to a more protected site if she felt the night mooring would be rough after the night dive.
We did have some pretty strong currents that we were told were not the norm here. After the 3rd day, they got quite strong and we found ourselves sometimes clawing at the sand to move around Shark Paradise or some of the other sites. It was often a struggle to make progress by kicking alone. Those with split fins had an especially hard time. As I said earlier, Capt. Christy chose to make a few of the dives drifts, which made it easier on us. Some of the sites don’t lend themselves to drift dives or we would have done more.
Visibility was over 100 feet on almost every dive. We did get some particulate in the water and a bit of haze on a couple dives that made photography difficult, but most dives were very clear and bright. The majority of the dives are 35-60 feet, so you get plenty of bottom time.
A couple things to know. The taxi ride from the airport to the marina at Old Bahama Bay is about 45 minutes and will cost you about $75 US plus a baggage fee. I think we were told our cost was $85 for two of us total with 5 pieces of luggage. On the return trip, the Captain sets up transportation using the resort’s vans, and it was only $100 for 7 of us with all our bags, so each only paid about $15 plus tip.
The tiki bar at Old Bahama Bay sucks. Service was incredibly slow, if you can even refer to it as service. The food was unimpressive when we finally got it after waiting over an hour. It will be your only food choice when you arrive, so consider eating at the airport or somewhere before you get to the resort. The main restaurant was open for dinner on our Friday in port, and it was pretty good with reasonable prices. It also is your only food choice for Friday.
The marina for the BA is shared with a variety of high-end yachts and other boats. Some of them threw parties into the night, however I did not find the noise kept me up.
The Freeport airport is severely lacking in food choices. Beware that at the Papa’s by the departure gates, the lady there was adding 20% to everyone’s bill even if you only got a sandwich or bagel, and putting that money into her tip jar. I don’t mind tipping when deserved, but I tip what I feel is fair.
On your exit from Freeport airport, there is a US Customs station with Global Entry kiosks. We were able to complete our US re-entry requirements all before leaving the airport. That allowed us to just land at our US connecting airport like any other passenger, with no need for standing in line for Customs. It was great, and I wish I knew that was going to happen, as I would have chosen less of a layover as we didn’t need the normal 3+ hours to clear the Customs line and make it to our gate.
I found having a reef or pointer stick to be an asset on these dives. I normally use it to steady myself for photography so I don’t have to touch the coral, but here I used it as a pick to jab into the sand. Used in this method with strong kicks helped me keep from getting blown backwards in the strong currents.
Gloves are allowed here and are useful to wear on the Sugar Wreck.
The Bahamas Aggressor is getting a new-ish boat. The Cayman Aggressor IV is going to be completely gutted and will become the new Bahamas Aggressor in the coming year or so. That will allow a bit more room, salon, and dive deck space for passengers.
Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with the boat, crew, and diving on the Tiger Beach itinerary of the Bahamas Aggressor. I chose this itinerary because I wanted to see and photograph sharks. The Bahamas Aggressor delivered. This is a trip I will do again.
The short version is it was an excellent trip that far exceeded my expectations. The boat is in great shape, the crew was top notch and worked well together, and the food was great. The diving gave us all the shark fix we could ask for. I would definitely do the trip again.
Just to put my review into perspective, this is my 8th live aboard, and 6th with Aggressor/Dancer Fleet.
We were on the BA from 08/04-08/11/18. The crew was Captain Christy, Chef Sara, and crewmembers Rob, Josh, Rachael, and Sophia.
The boat. I had some reservations about choosing this itinerary and ship, knowing that it used to be the Carib Dancer, which had horrible reviews just a few years ago when it joined Dancer Fleet. From doors falling off the bathrooms, to a chef quitting mid trip, the reviews were bad.
While the BA is an older vessel, I found it clean and functioning well. Aggressor definitely put some money into it to bring it up to the high standards that Aggressor Fleet is known for.
My only complaint would be the water pressure was a bit low as you moved forward in the ship. In room #2, we could only get the water to project about 6 inches from the showerhead. Pressure was much better on the dive platform. Some guests complained that their rooms felt hot, but after Engineer Josh explained that the AC works best to cool the ship when we leave our room doors open and bathroom fans on, doing that definitely made a difference. At night, you just close your door and cool it as normal without the fan on. I was comfortable.
The crew. The crew genuinely seemed to enjoy their jobs and did so enthusiastically. You barely had to lift a finger. They were fun to be around and joked amongst themselves and with the passengers. The crew was just the right mix of being safety conscious while letting divers dive their plans.
Captain Christy was great. On a couple sites when crewmembers reported strong currents when tying up the boat, she moved to a different site, or organized an impromptu drift dive to make the customers’ dives more enjoyable. She also free dived for fresh conch and lionfish for us to eat.
We had one snorkeler on our boat, and the crew helped put her at ease by snorkeling with her several times at shark sites. And yes, you can still snorkel with sharks below and next to you.
The food. The food was excellent. Chef Sara has a mac and cheese recipe that you need to try. Not your typical Kraft out of the box. I’m a pretty picky eater, but I never had a meal that I didn’t like. Her banana pancakes, cinnamon crepes, banana bread, and bread pudding were outstanding.
The diving. Sharks. You will see sharks. Lots of them. We saw sharks on all but 2-3 dives out of the 26 offered during the week. The best shark action is at Shark Paradise, which you will visit about 9 times. By about the 7th dive there, we started to get a little tired of the site, as it is basically just a sandy bottom at 35 feet with a small patch of reef next to it. A pyramid-shaped box holding bait is lowered below the boat about 5-15 feet above the sand, and that draws the sharks in. We saw lemon, reef, nurse and one tiger shark during our week. Even with the frequent stops at Shark Paradise, you will want to go there multiple times. I used the opportunity to really hone my photo skills of taking great shots of fast moving large subjects. You can swim around with the sharks if you want, which I did, but also take some time and just park yourself in the sand and shoot up towards the boat for some great contrasting shots. The only rules are don’t touch the sharks or the scent triangle. You are pretty much free to swim around or just sit and watch the show as you please. It is not the strict “You must kneel in the sand” type of dives you see at shark feedings.
Capt. Christy kept Shark Paradise from feeling like we were wearing it out by sandwiching our lunch between a pair of dives there. So, we would normally do a deeper (deeper being about 70-80 feet) dive in the morning, do a dive at Shark Paradise, eat lunch, do another dive at Shark Paradise, and then move to our afternoon site which also would be our night dive site. Note that it doesn’t get dark until about 9PM in August, so the night dive is more a dusk dive to start and it ends being dark. The Sugar Wreck was our favorite night dive. Tons of turtles!
After the second dive at Shark Paradise, the crew feeds the bait to the sharks off the dive platform. This is a great topside photo and video opportunity.
For the dive days, we did 5 dives Sunday-Thursday, and one dive Friday morning, for a total of 26 possible dives.
We had 84* F water while we were there with calm seas. On one day, we had some 3-foot waves, but this week was some of the calmest water I’ve dived in. No one got sick and Capt. Christy moved the boat to a more protected site if she felt the night mooring would be rough after the night dive.
We did have some pretty strong currents that we were told were not the norm here. After the 3rd day, they got quite strong and we found ourselves sometimes clawing at the sand to move around Shark Paradise or some of the other sites. It was often a struggle to make progress by kicking alone. Those with split fins had an especially hard time. As I said earlier, Capt. Christy chose to make a few of the dives drifts, which made it easier on us. Some of the sites don’t lend themselves to drift dives or we would have done more.
Visibility was over 100 feet on almost every dive. We did get some particulate in the water and a bit of haze on a couple dives that made photography difficult, but most dives were very clear and bright. The majority of the dives are 35-60 feet, so you get plenty of bottom time.
A couple things to know. The taxi ride from the airport to the marina at Old Bahama Bay is about 45 minutes and will cost you about $75 US plus a baggage fee. I think we were told our cost was $85 for two of us total with 5 pieces of luggage. On the return trip, the Captain sets up transportation using the resort’s vans, and it was only $100 for 7 of us with all our bags, so each only paid about $15 plus tip.
The tiki bar at Old Bahama Bay sucks. Service was incredibly slow, if you can even refer to it as service. The food was unimpressive when we finally got it after waiting over an hour. It will be your only food choice when you arrive, so consider eating at the airport or somewhere before you get to the resort. The main restaurant was open for dinner on our Friday in port, and it was pretty good with reasonable prices. It also is your only food choice for Friday.
The marina for the BA is shared with a variety of high-end yachts and other boats. Some of them threw parties into the night, however I did not find the noise kept me up.
The Freeport airport is severely lacking in food choices. Beware that at the Papa’s by the departure gates, the lady there was adding 20% to everyone’s bill even if you only got a sandwich or bagel, and putting that money into her tip jar. I don’t mind tipping when deserved, but I tip what I feel is fair.
On your exit from Freeport airport, there is a US Customs station with Global Entry kiosks. We were able to complete our US re-entry requirements all before leaving the airport. That allowed us to just land at our US connecting airport like any other passenger, with no need for standing in line for Customs. It was great, and I wish I knew that was going to happen, as I would have chosen less of a layover as we didn’t need the normal 3+ hours to clear the Customs line and make it to our gate.
I found having a reef or pointer stick to be an asset on these dives. I normally use it to steady myself for photography so I don’t have to touch the coral, but here I used it as a pick to jab into the sand. Used in this method with strong kicks helped me keep from getting blown backwards in the strong currents.
Gloves are allowed here and are useful to wear on the Sugar Wreck.
The Bahamas Aggressor is getting a new-ish boat. The Cayman Aggressor IV is going to be completely gutted and will become the new Bahamas Aggressor in the coming year or so. That will allow a bit more room, salon, and dive deck space for passengers.
Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with the boat, crew, and diving on the Tiger Beach itinerary of the Bahamas Aggressor. I chose this itinerary because I wanted to see and photograph sharks. The Bahamas Aggressor delivered. This is a trip I will do again.
