diverrick
Contributor
My wife and I just returned from a wonderful trip aboard the Kona Aggressor. The flights out and back from California were faultless. Congrats to Hawaiian airlines for a excellent job.
When we arrived in Kona, the Aggressor crew member was right there to help us out.
We were a bit early so we couldn't board for three hours, but we knew that coming into this trip, so we hung out and had mai tais and calimari at a nearby bar. Ummm..
The boat showed up exactly on time, and we had one wonderful trip. We have been on numerous livaboard boats, but this one beats them all hands down..
And the food!!! I have never had such fine food anywhere. Thier onboard chef, Doug, is wasting his time on a dive boat. He should have his own show, or line of cook books. It was wayyyy over the top delicious.
The surf was up when we arrived. They said it was the highest in 10 years. Water was going clean over Ali'i Blvd. Massive amounts of water over the top of the storm wall, so they started out down south to get away from the huge surf, which worked. We found calm waters down there for the first couple of days. When things calmed down a bit later in the week we worked our way back up North.
My wife got to snorkel with so many dolphins, untill she gave it up, the dolphins were game for more. She said they were about 1 foot on each side, clicking and talking, and lots of others in front and behind. Right up a personal, for as long as she wanted to swim with them. She said she even saw dolphin sex!
The Manta rays were awesome.. some were 15 feet across, coming within an inch of your face.. over and over again. I got videos out the gazoo. Those are wonderful animals for sure.
We saw a large Tiger shark, and all the usual suspect fishes. We even got to take some pics of a huge frog fish.. not the most photogenic fish I have ever seen, but I sure was thinking about Darwin while I looked at that fish with those legs.. Man, It doesn't get any better than that trip.
The one thing I would mention that MIGHT be considered a negitive, was the reef is not that interesting. All hard coral. You need to slow down and look at the small things. or look for the big things, but the reef itself was not at all what I was thinking it would look like.
The boat is a twin hull cat design. We had times when we would be besides a "V" hull boat, and they were rocking all over the place. This boat was Smoooth.. Very nice sleeping to that gentle rocking motion.
The crew seemed to really like thier work and worked very well togther. which also helped with making this the best liveaboard we have ever been on so far. Everything was exactly on time all week.
I can highly reccomend this boat.. Just the boat and crew would bring me back even if I didn't dive at all. And this group of customers was excellant!! that makes a world of difference. everyone got along just fine. One of the guest got out of line on a few of the dives, and the Captain was right on him.. On time he went to 170 feet on air. He got thrown out of the pool for a whole day after that feat. Then he grabbed a passing submarine, after being told not to go near it. The captain and he had to have another talk after that dive.
We had one close call, when we went out on our own to the cliff face to explore the wall.. we were in about 8 feet of water, along the wall, exploreing the holes and grottos with surge, breakers and all that stuff.. All of a sudden a twin enigined RIB flew right over our head with just a few feet between us and those props. We got the heck out of there FAST!!, only to be intercepted by another twin engined boat. This time we had about 12 feet of water but I still wanted out of there. About 5 mins later we were over run by a third boat. Not too sure if it was the same boats or another one, they all seem to look the same from below, especially when your ducking your head to save your scalp.
. The dive boat had the dive flags out. Seems it was a local tour group, who thrill the customers by hugging the coastline during the tour.. They almost got us.. Scared the hell out of us for sure.. Our Captain said he would talk to them about the event, and see if they can prevent another incident. We were about 100 yards off of the boat, which is along ways to find divers, but it still had the potential of a disaster. I never expected to have boats way out there on the coast, and in that shallow of water. Great trip all in all. Would do it again in a heart beat.
When we arrived in Kona, the Aggressor crew member was right there to help us out.
We were a bit early so we couldn't board for three hours, but we knew that coming into this trip, so we hung out and had mai tais and calimari at a nearby bar. Ummm..
The boat showed up exactly on time, and we had one wonderful trip. We have been on numerous livaboard boats, but this one beats them all hands down..
And the food!!! I have never had such fine food anywhere. Thier onboard chef, Doug, is wasting his time on a dive boat. He should have his own show, or line of cook books. It was wayyyy over the top delicious.
The surf was up when we arrived. They said it was the highest in 10 years. Water was going clean over Ali'i Blvd. Massive amounts of water over the top of the storm wall, so they started out down south to get away from the huge surf, which worked. We found calm waters down there for the first couple of days. When things calmed down a bit later in the week we worked our way back up North.
My wife got to snorkel with so many dolphins, untill she gave it up, the dolphins were game for more. She said they were about 1 foot on each side, clicking and talking, and lots of others in front and behind. Right up a personal, for as long as she wanted to swim with them. She said she even saw dolphin sex!
The Manta rays were awesome.. some were 15 feet across, coming within an inch of your face.. over and over again. I got videos out the gazoo. Those are wonderful animals for sure.
We saw a large Tiger shark, and all the usual suspect fishes. We even got to take some pics of a huge frog fish.. not the most photogenic fish I have ever seen, but I sure was thinking about Darwin while I looked at that fish with those legs.. Man, It doesn't get any better than that trip.
The one thing I would mention that MIGHT be considered a negitive, was the reef is not that interesting. All hard coral. You need to slow down and look at the small things. or look for the big things, but the reef itself was not at all what I was thinking it would look like.
The boat is a twin hull cat design. We had times when we would be besides a "V" hull boat, and they were rocking all over the place. This boat was Smoooth.. Very nice sleeping to that gentle rocking motion.
The crew seemed to really like thier work and worked very well togther. which also helped with making this the best liveaboard we have ever been on so far. Everything was exactly on time all week.
I can highly reccomend this boat.. Just the boat and crew would bring me back even if I didn't dive at all. And this group of customers was excellant!! that makes a world of difference. everyone got along just fine. One of the guest got out of line on a few of the dives, and the Captain was right on him.. On time he went to 170 feet on air. He got thrown out of the pool for a whole day after that feat. Then he grabbed a passing submarine, after being told not to go near it. The captain and he had to have another talk after that dive.
We had one close call, when we went out on our own to the cliff face to explore the wall.. we were in about 8 feet of water, along the wall, exploreing the holes and grottos with surge, breakers and all that stuff.. All of a sudden a twin enigined RIB flew right over our head with just a few feet between us and those props. We got the heck out of there FAST!!, only to be intercepted by another twin engined boat. This time we had about 12 feet of water but I still wanted out of there. About 5 mins later we were over run by a third boat. Not too sure if it was the same boats or another one, they all seem to look the same from below, especially when your ducking your head to save your scalp.
. The dive boat had the dive flags out. Seems it was a local tour group, who thrill the customers by hugging the coastline during the tour.. They almost got us.. Scared the hell out of us for sure.. Our Captain said he would talk to them about the event, and see if they can prevent another incident. We were about 100 yards off of the boat, which is along ways to find divers, but it still had the potential of a disaster. I never expected to have boats way out there on the coast, and in that shallow of water. Great trip all in all. Would do it again in a heart beat.
