We did the BVI Aggressor last week, were on our way there when they announced the move. It seems pretty clear the boat isn't sustainable there with the low occupancy. I think part of the problem is the high airfares, and the tender diving probably discourages some people. And it's not really noted as a big dive destination.
I'd been wanting to try this boat, and hadn't been to BVI, so grabbed a deal that week to escape part of January. I think we had 15 - probably because of the discount that week - so more than usual but still not full. I think this next week probably didn't have enough passengers to pay for the fuel.
It's a nice boat with plenty of room to hang out. Huge dive deck, nice inside lounge, outside lounge, dining room, sundeck. Great crew who busted their butts. At least some won't be moving to Bahamas for a variety of reasons. Pretty good food, with occasional blips. (He's a pastry chef at heart, so great homemade bread every dinner, and snacks and deserts that went well beyond the usual.)
The tender diving is because there's no place on the dive sites to moor a boat of this size. Even if there were lots of open moorings, and those moorings could support a boat of this size, there's not physically room. Good chance of swinging into other moorings or a cliff or other issues.
The tender diving works ok, but does limit the dive times and makes things feel rushed. Getting everyone back on board takes time, the trip to site and back takes time. Between dives 1/2 and 3/4, you'd get back on LOB, take reg off tank to get filled, putter around a bit, and it was about time for the next briefing. I never left the dive deck. It was sort of like going on a 2 tank day boat, but with lots more space and homemade cinnamon buns. Which is not all bad.
Most people walked onto tender with gear. Probably about half took off gear in water and passed it up. I went on and off with gear, but took it off in the tender post dive maybe twice, as longer rides while wearing a tank could be pretty uncomfortable. The constant dragging of gear over the side of the RIBs and maybe just the rides seemed a bit hard on gear, with bits of things coming off or breaking.
They tied the 2 tenders together at the dive sites and I think there was usually only one driver left up. Currents were variable and they didn't know until they got to a site and someone jumped in the water. There were dives that would have been better as real drifts with a pickup at end, but unless only one tender went out this couldn't really happen. So a possible advantage of tender diving, wasn't.
The diving was ok. Volcanic with lots of rocky substrate. Lots of algae some places. Not much for hard coral (at least not anymore like many places.) Some nice sponges and soft coral and decent fish life. Good chance of sharks and rays. Lots of Tarpon. A couple cutesy artificial wreck sites with boats turned into sharks, skeletons dancing around, etc. I wasn't excited about, but made for amusing photo ops. Rhone was nice, but started calm in morning and currents really kicked up over the day. Had one badly planned dive swimming into a very strong current, one of those "wish I were back on the boat" dives.
I'd class this as "glad I did it but don't need to do it again" trip. Which of course won't be possible now anyway. If you decide to grab a deal in the next couple months, check first that you can get there for an acceptable price. (Going through USVI or maybe San Juan will probably get you better prices, but may also involve smaller planes or the ferries, so have different issues.) When I first looked fares were high and we figured we'd do award tickets since we have plenty of miles. Got busy and waited a few weeks, at which point both fares and award tickets had gone really insane. In the end we found a plan that worked for us involving stays before and after, which is kind of what we wanted anyway. But beware.
BVI are beautiful, stunning views in every direction. Driving is an adventure.
