Trip Report My hasty T&C Aggressor trip report May 12-19 2018

[KathyV]

In the first part of the video, those are definitely Tarpon (you can easily tell by the tail shape) - the last solo guy swimming up to the camera is obviusly a Barracuda.

So I'm not crazy, others have seen tarpon in the T&Cs!

 

[drrich2]

That's interesting about the tarpon; I wonder why it is so? Add that to a small list of species I see in parts of the Florida/Caribbean region, but not others (e.g.: gray angelfish and pork fish). IIRC, I only noticed one adult French angelfish on this trip, but a number of queens and some grays.

Richard.

 

[darook]

Here is my video edit from last week.

 

[KathyV]

Here is my video edit from last week.

Beautiful video, thank you for sharing. I know that you had to deal with windy conditions, but I know that the Caymans and some other parts of the Caribbean are getting drenched this week, so maybe it wasn't so bad!

 

[drrich2]

Enjoyed your video; made me nostalgic for the trip, and envy you the drone.

Somehow I never 'clicked' with video; almost always focus on stills with text explanations to tell my stories. But when I want to get a sense of what dive conditions in an area look like, sometimes I go to You Tube to watch dive videos (which was helpful in prepping for my 1st Jupiter, FL trip).

Richard.

 

[darook]

Beautiful video, thank you for sharing. I know that you had to deal with windy conditions, but I know that the Caymans and some other parts of the Caribbean are getting drenched this week, so maybe it wasn't so bad!

Agreed, I will take sun and wind over rain and wind any day. The only downsides of the wind are getting cold when you get out and that I couldn't fly my drone much. It has been a weird year weather wise in the tropics. Lots of wind and rain.

 

[Damselfish]

Few minutes after a dive? How did anyone think that was a good idea?

Pretty much every liveaboard I've ever been on has this. While the words used were "hot shower" I'm guessing it was really the typical quick warmish rinse and @drrich2 seems to confirm. Key is it's fresh water, warmer than you are, and very convienient - one of the many little niceties of diving from a liveaboard. If it was really hot that might not be a great idea, but I'd guess skin bends issues would be related to the typical deepish dive profiles in that area, especially if you go for 5 a day.

 

[Brodydog]

We were on the next dive site over and often times switching dive sites with you during that same week, on board the Explorer’s boat. There was a group of 4 on our boat who’d also been on board the week before. They made it over to French Cay the week before and did one dive site only due to winds. They said we weren’t missing out on anything as French Cay diving was not the same as it was pre-storms from last year. This was our 4th liveaboard trip here, with the last time being 3 years ago. The diving was a bit disappointing this time.

Your photos and videos are great @darook. I especially liked the video. Nice job!

 

[darook]

We were on the next dive site over and often times switching dive sites with you during that same week, on board the Explorer’s boat. There was a group of 4 on our boat who’d also been on board the week before. They made it over to French Cay the week before and did one dive site only due to winds. They said we weren’t missing out on anything as French Cay diving was not the same as it was pre-storms from last year. This was our 4th liveaboard trip here, with the last time being 3 years ago. The diving was a bit disappointing this time.

Your photos and videos are great @darook. I especially liked the video. Nice job!

Thanks! I would have liked to fly the drone more but the winds were pretty high for my little Mavic. It was nice to see how the Aggressor and Explorer teams helped each other out. One time the hot/cold water mixer broke on the Explorer and the Aggressor had a spare to lend them. The other time we needed compressor oil (someone put the wrong stuff in I think) and the Explorer hooked us up.

 

[Brodydog]

Thanks! I would have liked to fly the drone more but the winds were pretty high for my little Mavic. It was nice to see how the Aggressor and Explorer teams helped each other out. One time the hot/cold water mixer broke on the Explorer and the Aggressor had a spare to lend them. The other time we needed compressor oil (someone put the wrong stuff in I think) and the Explorer hooked us up.

Yes it is nice they are friendly enough to help each other out. That says a lot for the companies and captains of both ships.