DiveMaven
Contributor
Don was right on in his review of the Nekton Pilot, and I definitely don't have anything to add about the food, accommodations, or crew...all were excellent! 
But I'll add my 2 cents about our trip.
This was the first liveaboard trip that my husband and I did, and it exceeded our expectations from the first minute we encountered the crew at the airport. We've already made plans in our heads to be back on the Pilot for the Bahamas itinerary sometime in the future.
There were 14 divers on our trip, which made it feel like a private trip due to all the room we had on the boat. We dove mostly Long Caye and Half Moon Caye, and our last day was spent at Turneffe at a dive site called Coral Gardens, where the viz was around 80'+ and the reef provided us with a lot to see on our 60+ minute dives.
On Wednesday of our trip, we encountered some pretty bad weather, which made us all feel sorry for the folks on the Sun Dancer II as we watched their boat pitch and yaw in the 10'+ seas. We were all imagining how uncomfortable those folks were while we had a fabulous meal of lobster! That storm absolutely proved that the SWATH design is the way to go, particularly for those of us with motion sickness problems. I wore my patch all week and had no problems at all, even in the rough seas. Fortunately, the sun came out on Thursday and Friday and except for a little more silt in the water, the diving resumed as good as before.
As far as exposure protection, the water was pretty consistently 79 degrees with some sites being slightly cooler or warmer. I dove in my 5mm suit all week, and was glad for it, but my husband was fine in his 3mm. There were a few folks on board who only brought shorties, and two of them wound up renting full suits for the week as they got cold very quickly on the first day. Others were layering suits by mid-week as they became chilled with all the repetitive diving. Of course there were those like my husband who were more than comfortable in their 3mm suits. Bottom line is you really have to know your own cold tolerance. I'd say a minimum is a 3mm full suit, with a 5mm being recommended for those who chill with repetitive diving.
I want to thank everyone who said that this was an itinerary that is easily done on air. We didn't sit out one dive and our computers never got into the yellow with nitrogen loading. The steel 95 tanks gave us extended bottom times, had us carrying less weight in our BCs, and made gas management a snap. Our typical profile had us dropping down a wall to around 75 feet, working our way down and up the wall, then cruising the top of the reef on our way back to the boat at around 40 feet. We'd then spend some time poking around under the boat, and would do a 5 minute safety stop between the pontoons under the boat. Surface intervals were usually an hour and a half, and time in the water was always 45 minutes or more.
We had a few equipment issues on this trip, which just made it more interesting. My husband's reg decided to have a slight free flow all week, so he was going through an extra 100-200 pounds on his dives. He also lost a weight pouch in 160+ feet of water, and both of my fins decided to break. My last day of diving was with very fashionable duct tape on my fins to keep them from ripping more. Since they were 13 year old fins, we weren't surprised that they finally gave out, and were glad they waited until almost the last day to go.
Obviously we had an excellent time and would recommend Nekton and the Belize itinerary strongly.
But I'll add my 2 cents about our trip.This was the first liveaboard trip that my husband and I did, and it exceeded our expectations from the first minute we encountered the crew at the airport. We've already made plans in our heads to be back on the Pilot for the Bahamas itinerary sometime in the future.
There were 14 divers on our trip, which made it feel like a private trip due to all the room we had on the boat. We dove mostly Long Caye and Half Moon Caye, and our last day was spent at Turneffe at a dive site called Coral Gardens, where the viz was around 80'+ and the reef provided us with a lot to see on our 60+ minute dives.
On Wednesday of our trip, we encountered some pretty bad weather, which made us all feel sorry for the folks on the Sun Dancer II as we watched their boat pitch and yaw in the 10'+ seas. We were all imagining how uncomfortable those folks were while we had a fabulous meal of lobster! That storm absolutely proved that the SWATH design is the way to go, particularly for those of us with motion sickness problems. I wore my patch all week and had no problems at all, even in the rough seas. Fortunately, the sun came out on Thursday and Friday and except for a little more silt in the water, the diving resumed as good as before.
As far as exposure protection, the water was pretty consistently 79 degrees with some sites being slightly cooler or warmer. I dove in my 5mm suit all week, and was glad for it, but my husband was fine in his 3mm. There were a few folks on board who only brought shorties, and two of them wound up renting full suits for the week as they got cold very quickly on the first day. Others were layering suits by mid-week as they became chilled with all the repetitive diving. Of course there were those like my husband who were more than comfortable in their 3mm suits. Bottom line is you really have to know your own cold tolerance. I'd say a minimum is a 3mm full suit, with a 5mm being recommended for those who chill with repetitive diving.
I want to thank everyone who said that this was an itinerary that is easily done on air. We didn't sit out one dive and our computers never got into the yellow with nitrogen loading. The steel 95 tanks gave us extended bottom times, had us carrying less weight in our BCs, and made gas management a snap. Our typical profile had us dropping down a wall to around 75 feet, working our way down and up the wall, then cruising the top of the reef on our way back to the boat at around 40 feet. We'd then spend some time poking around under the boat, and would do a 5 minute safety stop between the pontoons under the boat. Surface intervals were usually an hour and a half, and time in the water was always 45 minutes or more.
We had a few equipment issues on this trip, which just made it more interesting.
My husband's reg decided to have a slight free flow all week, so he was going through an extra 100-200 pounds on his dives. He also lost a weight pouch in 160+ feet of water, and both of my fins decided to break. My last day of diving was with very fashionable duct tape on my fins to keep them from ripping more. Since they were 13 year old fins, we weren't surprised that they finally gave out, and were glad they waited until almost the last day to go.Obviously we had an excellent time and would recommend Nekton and the Belize itinerary strongly.
