Nekton Belize or Cayman?

[ECPaul]

Hi everyone.
We are planning on doing a liveaboard with Nekton from December 23rd-30th. The two choices are South Belize and the Cayman Islands. We have previously been to Grand Cayman for diving, and enjoyed it very much. For those of you that have done these trips or just have some imput, which do you prefer in terms of:

-Marine Life (variety of fish, healthy coral)
-Conditions/Comfort (current, visibilty, and weather seem to determine how easy/difficult your dive will be)
-Overall Enjoyment/Adventure

Both of these locations seem wonderful, so the hardest thing is to decide which one!?!

Thanks for any advice.

 

[djanni]

Hi everyone.
We are planning on doing a liveaboard with Nexton from December 23rd-30th. The two choices are South Belize and the Cayman Islands. We have previously been to Grand Cayman for diving, and enjoyed it very much. For those of you that have done these trips or just have some imput, which do you prefer in terms of:

-Marine Life (variety of fish, healthy coral)
-Conditions/Comfort (current, visibilty, and weather seem to determine how easy/difficult your dive will be)
-Overall Enjoyment/Adventure

Both of these locations seem wonderful, so the hardest thing is to decide which one!?!

Thanks for any advice.

Since we did Belize in Dec 05 I'd pick Grand Cayman. I think? Belize was great. We want to go back there again. We've been to Grand Cayman too but not Little Cayman or Cayman Brac so maybe... humm!!?! Tough decision.

Know what... flip a Coin. You couldn't go wrong either way.

BTW: we dove with a guy on the Nekton Belize trip whose SB handle was OCPaul.

 

[Darnold9999]

Did Belize in March am leaving in 8 days for Cayman, will let you know what I think when I get back.

 

[mudchick]

My husband and I did Cay Sal Banks with Nekton in May and while I can't say anything about Belize I can highly recommend Nekton. The service was excellent and geared always towards safety and the food was excellent. Let me know what you decide. We were thinking of doing the Nekton Belize trip in Dec. or Jan. also, if finances fall into place.

 

[DiveMaven]

We did Belize last December on the Nekton Pilot and definitely plan to go back. I'm with Don though, if I were choosing, I'd go with the Cayman itinerary because I've done Belize. However, since you've dove the Caymans before, why not try something different and do Belize?

We felt that the diving in Belize was excellent. It was basically wall/reef diving which made for simple navigation and gave us lots of choices of depth and type of diving. We could choose to stay on top of the reef or drop down the wall to whatever depth we wanted. We typically did both...drop down to depth, slowly work our way up, turn around and make our way back to the boat on top of the reef to off-gas. The big Steel 95 tanks gave us some great bottom times too.

We were impressed with the health of the corals, the sponges, and the marine life, finding there to be an abundance of both. However, we did not see any large pelagics. We had been forewarned that Belize is mostly about the macro-life, and there was that in abundance.

 

[ECPaul]

Thanks for the strong vote of support for Nekton - seems a tossup.

A deciding factor may be airfare. From our location (Baltimore) it is appears to be a lot less expensive to get to Cayman that the Belize, unless anyone has an insider information about inexpensive airfare to Belize....

 

[ScubaLuke]

A deciding factor may be airfare.

Another factor to think about is weather. I think the weather would be more likely to be better in Belize that time of year but I don't know for sure.

I was on the Cayman Aggressor in late November a couple of years ago and we couldn't make the crossing to Little Cayman because of bad weather. I gather that's a pretty common occurrence but the Nekton's swath boat probably won't be quite as limited as the Aggressor's boat.

Luke

 

[Ed Jackson1]

I've done both with the Nekton and loved it. The Caymans have an off gassing afternoon that I did not like, but otherwise it was fun. Visability is great in both places. I would probably pick Belize as my favorite.
The Caymans will allow to you to see Bloody Bay wall in Little Cayman which is much better than Grand Cayman though.

 

[Desert_Diver]

Hi everyone.
We are planning on doing a liveaboard with Nexton from December 23rd-30th. The two choices are South Belize and the Cayman Islands. We have previously been to Grand Cayman for diving, and enjoyed it very much. For those of you that have done these trips or just have some imput, which do you prefer in terms of: (deleted)


Both of these locations seem wonderful, so the hardest thing is to decide which one!?!

Thanks for any advice.

I dove Belize (not with Nekton) and loved it.

I have done the Nekton NW Bahamas trip and had a fine time. This is the same boat that repositions to Belize in the winter.

I have dove Grand Cayman but not with Nekton. I had a great time.

That being said, I just received my most recent "Undercurrent". "Undercurrent" does not accept advertising and they send "under cover" divers to a dive location. They then write up their experiences. Supposedly, the dive operators do not realize they are doing a story and in theory, won't treat them any differently than any other guest.

They had a somewhat uncomplimentary report on both Nekton and Aggressor Caymen cruises. I can't comment on either ship, not having done the trip. The artical did suggest that some of the shore based resort operators may be banding together to bring legal action against Nekton. Apparently there is a twenty some max diver rule on one of the dive sites. Nekton can carry up to 32 divers. They hire a local boat to keep each group below the legal limit. The shore operators feel that this is not within the spirit of the law and are talking about legal remediation. (I believe that the dive site in question is Bloody Bay Wall, but I don't have my magazine with me. Posting from work. <furtive look>)

I don't think that they sell Undercurrent on newstands, but if you ask around, one of your dive buddies may have access to it.

Art

 

[Damselfish]

Hadn't heard they were using another boat (though I sort of figured they would try that workaround sooner or later.) The area in question is Bloody Bay marine park, which isn't just one site but a long stretch where alot of the diving on LC is done.