Which Liveaboard for Cayman Islands or Bahamas?

[jimdiverman]

I greatly appreciate you taking the time to share. I'm going to head out with a gentlemen from the board who has some room available w/his group.

Looking forward to having a great time.

It sounds like you've had some great times aboare the Juliet.

Thanks for the information it really helps.

I do have one other question, can you get someone from the crew to dive with you if you need a buddy?

Since I was doing so much photography, I really wasn't interested in a buddy. ( I did have a buddy on every dive, but we weren't in arms reach the entire dive due to taking phots). The water is clear on every dive, so I was pretty much off on my own. But on my first trip, I remember diving with the dive master a couple of times, especially when there were things they wanted to point out at the different sites. I am sure you won't have any trouble with that, or with finding someone else on board to buddy up with if you are going alone.

What trip did you decide to go on? I got an update from John yesterday. Here it is:
Hi Jim,

Thank you for the e-mail. It is good to hear from you and to hear that we are in demand on Scubaboard. Business has been very good. We have been booking more weeks with individuals, but I don’t have enough weeks available. I have been referencing individuals to the dive shops that have not filled their trips yet. I have two weeks available for the Bahamas this year. I am opening them up to individual bookings. They are September 20-26 and November 15-21. We also have 6 spots available on our March 15-21 Turks & Caicos charter. I appreciate anything that you can do to help get the word out. I hope that all is well with you. Tim and Danielle have moved on to other things. It was a very amicable parting, and I would not be surprised if Tim comes back to fill-in later this year. We have some excellent replacements for them. Brandon is doing a great job as Captain, and his wife Beth is working onboard full-time now.


The shops that have room right now are;
Open Water Adventures (5 spots) June 21-27
Easy Divers (4 spots) July 12-18
R&R Cruise Center (8 spots) July 26 – August 1
Dolphin Dive Center (? Spots) August 23-29
These numbers could change quickly. These are all repeat customers and usually have no trouble filling their trips.


Thank you for your support!
Sincerely,
John Beltramo
President
Capulet Marine, Inc.
DBA Juliet Sailing and Diving
john@sailjuliet.com
(650) 906-4249

 

[WOODMAN]

If you look back into my old posts, you will find an exhaustive review of the Juliet, along with several photos of the Juliet and her accomodations in my photo gallery. I hope this helps. Woodman

 

[Nesher]

Since I was doing so much photography, I really wasn't interested in a buddy. ( I did have a buddy on every dive, but we weren't in arms reach the entire dive due to taking phots). The water is clear on every dive, so I was pretty much off on my own. But on my first trip, I remember diving with the dive master a couple of times, especially when there were things they wanted to point out at the different sites. I am sure you won't have any trouble with that, or with finding someone else on board to buddy up with if you are going alone.

What trip did you decide to go on? I got an update from John yesterday.

Hey thanks for all the information really good stuff...well I'm headed out with a group in May 2008.

I feel really good about getting the opportunity to go because I have heard the Juliet is usually booked solid.

I'll post a trip report when I return. It appears that the guys who I'll be on ship with are really good people. I'll keep you informed.

Thanks again, your post really helped me to make a decision.

 

[jimdiverman]

Since I was doing so much photography, I really wasn't interested in a buddy. ( I did have a buddy on every dive, but we weren't in arms reach the entire dive due to taking phots). The water is clear on every dive, so I was pretty much off on my own. But on my first trip, I remember diving with the dive master a couple of times, especially when there were things they wanted to point out at the different sites. I am sure you won't have any trouble with that, or with finding someone else on board to buddy up with if you are going alone.

What trip did you decide to go on? I got an update from John yesterday.

Hey thanks for all the information really good stuff...well I'm headed out with a group in May 2008.

I feel really good about getting the opportunity to go because I have heard the Juliet is usually booked solid.

I'll post a trip report when I return. It appears that the guys who I'll be on ship with are really good people. I'll keep you informed.

Thanks again, your post really helped me to make a decision.

Nesher,

Happy to have helped. I would love to go on a Juliet trip this year, and may try to squeeze it in later in the year, but I have been so concentrated on tech (cave) diving right now, I am staying focused on that for the foreseeable future.

Have a great trip. Look forward to hearing about it.

 

[jeremyl]

This thread brought up a couple questions for me as well. I was planning on booking with Cayman Aggressor this summer - May or June although looks like May is pretty close to booked and June is filling. But I now have concern about getting to Little Cayman. To spend the whole time on GC I would think would not make me as happy. Would I be in high risk of not making the passage in mid June? I am equally (well close to equal) considering Turks Aggressor. Do they always (usually?) make it to West Caicos and Frech Caye? Do they also dive off Provo? I am really just in search of the best diving. I plan to do both before too long...

 

[CoralSeaMan]

I was on the Cayman Agressor from January 12 through 19. It was a overall a great experience.

We did a total of 24 dives with 3 night dives. It is concievable in perfect conditions we might have done 2 more dives (1 more night dive) but the captain suggested forgoing a second afternoon dive on Grand Cayman (and a night dive?) to avoid choppy weather crossing to Little Cayman. A good suggestion to which everyone agreed. We also did not have a night dive on the way back from Little Cayman. We did not get to Cayman Brac to see the "destroyer" but I enjoyed the other dives so much I was not in any way disappointed. In total we did 13 or 14 of our dives on or near Bloody Bay Wall. I enjoyed each and every one.
Visibility was not particularly good- 50-70 feet. I presume that was the result of the season. Water was in the high 70s, air in the low 80s.
Since I have never before dove in the Caymans I cannot comment much on the health of the reef. There appears to be a significant amount of bleaching but there were lots of turtles, groupers and baracuda as well as plenty of the obligatory smaller reef fish. There was a lot to see among the soft coral on the top of the walls as well as on the walls and ravines of the walls themselves.
Someone from the crew was on every dive and often there were two or more. They pointed out lots of things but divers were free to explore whereever they wanted. The dive briefings were thorough and informative. Since you usually did two dives at most sites the briefings let you explore in depth.
I even used a dpv.

The crew was attentive, informative, helpful and friendly. They all perform all the functions on the boat, dive wait tables, hand out towels. They made the trip extra special.

There were 18 passangers on Board, all but one diving. Generally, the divers were skilled and experienced. They were also friendly and there were no conflicts.

The food was quite good and healthy. Breakfast always had the choice of a hot item as well as cereal and toast. Lunch was lighter with salads, sandwiches and sides. Dinners were all good with meat, fowl, or fish, vegetables, bread, salads and a desert. (At least one person was having a special diet prepared - no problem) Tea, water, lemonade, wine, beer were all there.
Once you had an alcoholic beverage, diving was out for the day. There were hot, fresh snacks after morning and afternoon dives.

The cabins did not seem that large (although I don't have anything else to compare them to). Still, they were comfortable enough (no one complained of being unable to sleep) although not all cabins and bunks are the same and those in the back of the boat get to hear a lot more of the engines than the cabins more forward. There were some mildly rough seas but people just slept through them. To give you more room they have you take all of your stuff and store your luggage on shore until the boat returns. I never spent time there but in the lounge there was a large HD TV and a selection of DVDs. The cabins had small DVD players as well. (Whenever I was in the cabin I logged dives or slept).

The top deck was for lounging, resting, talking eating or even using a hot tub.
The dive space was large and comfortable with large lockers. There was a good large camara table and rinse tank.

There were three special things:
1. At the aft end of the boat there are shower nozzles and you can take a hot shower after every dive.
2. The crew was somewhat fanatic about giving you a warm dry towel when you finished your shower. (You could get a dry towel by reaching into a cooler but if there were towels in the dryer the crew would insist on giving you one.)
3. On Sunday night we travelled from Grand Cayman to Little Cayman. With no land in sight and the only lights from our boat the sky was brilliant. It has been a long time since I have seen that kind of sky. It was almost worth the cost of the whole trip by itself.

I hope that gives you some idea of what the Cayman Agressor is about. I know this sounds like a commercial, but my experience was that good.

 

[UnderwaterBumbleBee]

Thanks CoralSeaMan for the great and detailed report! Did you see a lot of larger life? One thing I remember from our last trip to GC in 2005 was tons of turtles and rays. Did you get to dive any of the wrecks? I want to say we went to GC in Aug/Sept last time and one of the Dive masters with Divetech told us December was a good time to go. I'd love to hear from other people when they had good viz/conditions. Overall though, I think I would book Aggressor for GC so I appreciate your report! By the way, did you get any photos?

 

[CoralSeaMan]

There were a few sharks (nurse and reef, maybe a black tip), lots of stingrays and a few eagle rays. There were also many turtles although I did see more in a place called las tortugas off Playa del Carmen. We dove a single wreck (Soto Trader) off Little Cayman and it wasn't much of a wreck but there was lots of interesting life on a night dive there. We did not get to Cayman Brac to do the Russian ship there. Since most of the dives were on Little Cayman I cannot comment on the GC diving except that I have beem told we did the signature dives on the West and North side.

I am not much of a photographer so I will have to consider long and hard about posting them

 

[RJP]

I can't say enough good things about the Cayman Aggressor...