Trip Report BVI Aggressor Review: AMAZING VACATION, GREAT LIVEABOARD, GREAT CREW.

[Damselfish]

Even if a LOB doesn’t specifically recommend it, it’s still a good idea. Not only so your luggage arrives on time, but so you arrive on time. I find it more relaxing to arrive at least the day before and chill a bit. Have a nice dinner and check out the area. I might do same day for a short/low risk flight (which is rarely the case for us with connections) but wouldn’t plan a 5pm arrival, I’d be stressed out.
(But then, I prefer to stay a few days after too, extend the vacation. Beats rushing off the LOB early am, instead can take our time and be sitting around a pool someplace instead of an airport. Or diving some more.)

Another alternative to getting to your destination a day early, is to plan your flight with an overnight stopover if the times work. For us that can mean leaving our house at a more civilized hour, a good meal and sleep someplace, then another civilized-hour flight that can get us to our destination earlier in the day.

 

[rongoodman]

I usually fly out with my wetsuit and fins in the carry on, along with mask, computers, and a swim suit, shorts, and T-shirt. If I have to rent a BC and reg, so it goes. It just struck me that they made a bigger deal of it for this specific site than any of the others I’ve been to, Cocos Island excepted.

 

[rongoodman]

I’m here now, waiting for lunch. It turns out that the last leg was on a twin-engine Cessna with a capacity of 8. No problems with the flight or luggage, but a real bottleneck getting people to and from the boat.

 

[rongoodman]

Great trip, waiting for my flight from St Thomas back to Atlanta. We only had six guests on board, with 30+ Aggressor trips among us. The water was very warm but the coral was in good shape. Lots of surge but no big currents. Standard Caribbean critters. The dives were easy, deepest maybe 90’ at the sand. For the most part they wanted us back at the mooring in 45 min, in the tender in 50. Since all the dives were from the tenders, the schedule would never have worked with longer dives. As it was, the surface intervals often felt short, even though they weren’t. The area is very pretty, with lots of little islands and interesting geology. T&C is still my favorite Caribbean diving, but BVI is definitely worth a look.

 

[rongoodman]

To answer a couple of other questions, there were 24 dives offered. Only 3 night dives instead of the usual 5, and one dive was replaced by a land excursion which I skipped. We did 3 dives on the various pieces of the Rhone and one nearby which ended up there. The night dive was supposed to be there too, but the current was ripping and we had to go to another site. We geared up on the main boat but the crew would carry your gear into the tender if you needed them to. Of the six of us, four climbed the ladder in gear and two removed theirs in the water for the crew to haul aboard. I found the ladder to be a little more awkward than the ones out at Cocos, but no big deal. Only one dive had us returning to a drifting tender, the others were all at moorings with the line to hang on for the safety stop if needed. One thing I did like was that there were water bottles for each of us in the tender so we could slug down a pint on the way back. I got dehydrated at T&C in June with possibly a mild Type 1 hit on the last day, so I was being extra aware of the issue on this trip.