Belize Aggressor III Captain's Logs

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Belize Aggressor III Captain's Report August 24 to 31, 2013

Sea Conditions: calm to light chop
Average Water Temp: 83- 85F (wetsuit optional, but recommended full body 3 for multiple dives)
Average Visibility: 80-120 ft (with a few days of 120+ visibilities)
Average Wind: 7-10 knots
Crewed this week by Jay, Mike, Jody, Juan, Vanessa and Yanis

All of our anxious guests boarded Saturday afternoon at 3pm and got settled in with their equipment. This week we welcomed our guests from the USA, Canada and Italy; Michael & Marnie G, Marnie V, Sherman, Marco, Angelo & Christiana, Daniela, John, Stephen & Stella and Bob. After doing our Captain's safety briefing and introductions, we sat down to a wonderful meal prepared by Chef Yanis. Afterwards, we departed from the Fort George Dock in Belize City and headed over to Turneffe Atoll for the evening.

Dive Sites of the week:
Sunday: Sandy Slope and Dos Cocos
Monday: Long Cay Ridge and Cathedral
Tuesday: The Blue Hole, Half Moon Caye Beach BBQ and Half Moon Caye Wall
Wednesday: Aquarium and Hat Cay Wall
Thursday: Silver Caves and Chain Wall
Friday: Painted Wall and Front Porch

We initiated our week moored to Sandy Slope off the west side of Turneffe Island where we did our check-out dive and second morning dive. These reefs are very healthy and populated with tons of juvenile fish and cleaning stations sheltered between the coral heads especially for the groupers. Other sightings included; spotted toadfish, trumpet fish, needlefish, butterflyfish, angelfish, damselfish, triggerfish, assorted wrasses and parrotfish. We also discovered a huge coral crab, spider crabs, and lobsters and several lionfish staking their claims on the reef. After our check-out dives we headed over to Lighthouse Reef Atoll. Throughout our trip, we were welcomed by numerous jack schooling under the boat, large free swimming green moray eels along with stunning queen triggerfish. In the shallows we found a southern stingray, spotted drum, a spotted moray eel, jaw fish, and assorted nudibranchs. The day concluded with a beautiful Caribbean sunset and a night dive with active tarpon, lobster, squid and octopus.

On Monday we encountered sharks, spotted eagle rays, grouper dive buddy and hawksbill turtles!!! The morning was filled with numerous cleaning stations for the parrotfish, large groupers, queen triggerfish, queen angelfish and barracuda. These locations are also incredible wall dives highlighted by all types of reef activity; a formation of spotted eagle rays, a curious big grouper escorted our dive group and a photogenic hawksbill turtle. Sightings also included a very shy porcupine puffer hiding in a huge barrel sponge, small moray eel, several trunkfish, spotted filefish and a huge ball of horse eye jacks under the boat. Marnie celebrated her 400th dive with some cute little jawfish in the sand while Mike evaded a pesky remora circling the boat. After lunch we navigated through awesome sand canyons and Swiss cheese-like swim thrus where we found hiding arrow crabs, squirrelfish and spiny lobsters. Off the wall and in the shallows we encountered patrolling black tip sharks, a couple great barracuda, a few large tarpon and tons of silver sides schooling in the shallow caves. After another spectacular sunset and dinner, we dove with hunting tarpon, a group of squid, colorful octopus, and stingray feeding basket stars.

Tuesday we made our journey to the Great Blue Hole. This site was made famous by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who declared it one of the top ten scuba diving sites in the world. In 1971, he brought his ship Calypso to the hole to chart its depths. Today, our exploration was led past the deep and ancient stalagmites to relive its initial discovery and even three reefs sharks in the depths. After the Blue Hole we headed to Half Moon Caye Island. The island is the oldest site for wildlife protection in Belize and also the only breeding colony in the country for the thousands of red-footed booby birds that nest beside their pirating neighbors the magnificent frigate birds. We spent some time walking around the palm tree lined beaches, combed paths, came across a few hermit crabs, an iguana and enjoyed the scenery from the observation tower/platform nestled in the canopy. We ended our island visit with a private beach barbeque for lunch and a water taxi back to the mother ship.

Our next dive site is known for its beautiful wall highlighted by marvelous vibrant colors; including great barracuda, lionfish, spotted drum, trunkfish and hiding lobsters. For our night dive we found tarpon hunting under the boat, squid, bar jack, sharp tail eel, spotted drum, a big defensive crab, hiding lobsters and a spotted moray eel.

In summary, the week was filled with sighting numerous Caribbean reef sharks, blacktip reef sharks, spotted eagle rays, turtles, green moray eels, stingrays, assorted groupers and curious great barracuda. Additional highlights included a school of about 20 honeycomb trunkfish, elusive lionfish, dancing spotted drums, midnight parrotfish, filefish, spotted moray eels and schools of silversides bursting out of the shallow caves; making this one of Marnie's best dive trips ever!!!

Typical night dives were also very active. Divers were entertained by hunting tarpon, assorted sized squid, colorful octopus, stingrays flying around in the darkness, sleeping turtles, spotted moray eels on the hunt, lobsters trying not to attract too much attention, feeding basket stars scattered along the reef and an occasional lesser electric ray in the sand. Friday afternoon and once back in Belize City, guests had the opportunity of participating in land tours to the Mayan ruins, the Belize zoo, cave tubing or zip lining before the evening cocktail party.

Congratulations to Marnie for her 400th Recreational Dive!

Thanks again to all our awesome guests!!
 
Belize Aggressor III Captain's Report August 31 to September 10, 2013

Average Water Temp: 84- 86F
Wetsuit optional but recommended full body 3 for multiple dives
Average Visibility: 80-120Ft (with a few days of 120+ visibilities)
Average Wind: 7-10 knots
Average Sea Conditions: Calm to Light Chop

All of our anxious guests boarded at 3pm and got settled in with their equipment. This week we welcomed our guests David & Sharon, Kip, Loren, Louis & Alex, Simon & Joanne, David & Cathlene, Ted & Liz, Bill and Lt. Colonel Bob. After doing our Captain's safety briefing and introductions, we sat down to a wonderful meal prepared by Chef Anna. Afterwards, we departed from the Fort George Dock in Belize City and headed over to Lighthouse Atoll for the evening to start our diving early Sunday morning.

Dive Sites of the week:
Sunday: Sandy Slope & Julies Jungle
Monday: Two o0f a Kind, South East Cut
Tuesday: Shark Point & Chain Wall
Wednesday: Aquarium & Hat Cay
Thursday: Long Cay Wall & Cathedral
Friday: The Blue Hole, Half Moon Caye Beach BBQ & Half Moon Caye Wall
Saturday: Silver Caves & Painted Wall
Sunday: Long Cay Ridge & The Notch
Monday: Sandy Slope

We did most of the diving over at Lighthouse Reef except for Sunday afternoon and the following Monday/Friday dives on Turneffe Atoll. We initiated our week moored to Sandy Slope off the west side of Turneffe Island where we did our check out dive and second morning dive.

Along with spectacular Caribbean sunrises/sunsets, we had a great week of diving with sightings of numerous Caribbean reef sharks, juvenile black tip sharks, several spotted eagle rays, loggerhead/hawksbill/green turtles, shy southern stingrays, amberjacks, bottle-nose dolphins, free-swimming green and spotted morays, huge black and Nassau groupers, curious barracudas dive buddies, scores of hunting tarpon under the boat, colorful octopus, dancing squid, along with tons of reef fish such as trumpetfish, several species of butterfly fish, angelfish, triggerfish, schools of creole wrasse, tons of parrotfish (midnight, rainbow, stoplight), rock beauties, basslets, hamlets, damselfish, to name a few. Also there were a lot of critters such as skeleton shrimp, wire coral shrimp, squat anemone shrimp, Pederson shrimp, pipefish, pipe horse, blue throat pike blennies, head shield slugs, several species of nudibranchs, squid (some juvenile), comb jellies, and several cleaning stations.

Friday morning we traveled up to The Great Blue Hole. This site was made famous by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who declared it one of the top ten scuba diving sites in the world. In 1971, he brought his ship, the Calypso, to the hole to chart its depths. Our exploration was led past the deep and ancient stalagmites to relive its initial discovery and even saw flamingo tongues in the depths. After the Blue Hole we headed to Half Moon Caye Island. The island is the oldest site for wildlife protection in Belize and also the only breeding colony in the country for the thousands of Red-Footed Booby Birds that nest beside their pirating neighbors the Magnificent Frigate
Birds. We spent some time walking around the palm tree lined beaches, combed paths, came across a few Hermit Crabs, an Iguana and enjoyed the scenery from the observation tower/platform nestled in the canopy. We ended our island visit with a private beach barbeque for lunch and a water taxi back to the mother ship.

On Monday and once back in Belize City, guests had the opportunity of participating in land tours to Altun Ha Mayan Ruins, The Belize Zoo, cave tubing, zip lining or a relaxing massage on the upper sun deck before the evening cocktail party.

Congratulations to the following Divers:
Newly Certified Open Water Diver - Joanne
500th Recreational Dive - Simon
200th Recreational Dive - Lt. Colonel Bob
100th Recreational Dive - Louis & Alex
New Certified Advanced Open Water & Nitrox Divers - David and Cathlene
Newly Video Specialty Diver - Kip


THIS WEEK'S GORILLIA DIVERS: (Completed all the week's dives)
Louis, Alex, David, Cathlene, Loren and Liz


Thanks again to all our awesome guests!

Crew:
Captain/Instructor – Michael, Engineer/Instructor – Fermin, Video-Pro/Instructor – Chris, Photo-Pro /Instructor – Jody, Stewardess – Randy, Chef - Anna
 

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