Air Canada, Park 'n Fly, Nekton Cruises.
Before heading down, I spoke to the Nekton head office and they told me to meet the rep from the boat at the Post Office, just outside the terminal at San Juan Airport. After we landed, I got directions to said post office and went there. There was another person there looking for the Nekton rep, but no Nekton rep. After about 5 minutes, the rep walked over and said hello. He had some other passengers gathered about 50 metres from us. Speaking of tunnel vision, we had walked right by them on the way to the post office.
Our flight home was delayed 2 hours due to inclement weather in Toronto. When we finally got home it was rather quite chilly, and a couple inches of snow had fallen. It was a wise decision to splurge and get the Valet Parking.
This was our second trip with Nekton Cruises. Here is a link to the other report. As a liveaboard diveboat company, Nekton sets itself apart with it's SWATH technology which is supposed to greatly reduce the motion of the boat while at sea. On our earlier trip we had very calm seas and a very smooth ride. On this trip, the seas were a bit rougher and while the ride was fairly smooth, we could tell we were on a boat.
Something else that sets Nekton apart is the nightly presentations On our earlier trip we listened to presentations on coral, fish, turtles, and sharks. We watched the very same presentations on this trip. That is not necessarily bad, it is simply what happened. Other similarities between the two trips include crew introducions at the start, and polaroids of the crew and all passengers on a bulletin board.
Like the Nekton Pilot, the Nekton Rorqual is a short wide boat that carries a lot of passengers - 34 to be exact. Like the Nekton Pilot, the staterooms are spacious, the salon, dining area, and sundeck are very roomy, and the dive deck is very cramped.
The Nekton Roqual also has a desktop computer on board that is available to the passengers. First time I have ever seen that on a dive boat. We used this computer for the photo contest.
Most of the dives were normal liveaboard style dives. These took place at sites where Nekton had mooring lines in place. Basically, the dive deck was open from ~0815 to 1145 hrs, from 1315 to 1745 hrs, and during the night dive. Anyone could dive and return as they pleased during those times
Nekton also has something called a live dive. We did three of these.
A live dive is done at a spot where there is no mooring line and there is little or no expected current. The crew prepares the dive site by tying a marker ball off on the bottom somewhere. Then they divide the divers into two groups. The boat backs up near the marker, and everyone in each group starts at once. The two groups enter the water about 15 minutes apart. At the end of the dive, all divers are supposed to gather at the marker ball. Then the boat backs up near it, and the divers then swim to the boat, climb the ladder (fins on), climb four stairs (also fins on), and then they are on the dive deck. This last step is done in groups of four.
The first live dive went ok. Patti and I never did see the marker and at the end of the dive, we surfaced a couple of hundred metres down current of the boat. However, they do have a small chase/rescue boat which came and got us. We didn't get a ride though, we got a tow. That was sort of an interesting experience, especially since I was holding a camera.
The 2nd live dive didn't go quite as well. The wind kept blowing the big boat around and the divers had trouble swimming to it. It took over an hour to recover all the divers.
The 3rd live dive was quite the adventure because there was a fairly brisk current. This turned the marker line into a flagpole. I was in the first group of divers and the second group of four to return to the boat. Between the safety stop and waiting for the first group to get away, I was on that line for 13 minutes. Then I spent another 5 minutes holding on at the surface waiting for the boat to get into position.
Other liveaboard companies do these types of dives with skiffs. Of course, they don't have 34 divers.
The third type of dive is what Nekton calls drift diving. I call it guided diving. We did one of these
Drift dives are done when there is no mooring line and a strong current is anticipated. Like live dives, the divers are divided into two groups. Each group is assigned a lead divemaster and a trail divemaster. The lead divemaster tows a marker. The concept is that all divers from each group enter at once, follow the lead divemaster, and surface at once. Then, like on the live dives, the boat backs up the markers and the divers return four at a time.
Our drift dive went smoothly. There was no current, but who cares.
Other liveaboard companies do these types of dives with skiffs. Of course, they don't have 34 divers.
We dove Desecheo Island on Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we dove off Mona and Monita Islands (they are close together). On Friday morning we dove of the west coast of Puerto Rico.
A better itinerary would have been Desecheo on Sunday, Mona from Monday to Thursday, and Desecheo on Friday morning.
The dive sites off Desecheo Island were rather nice. They were all flat reefs, maybe some sand, which made navigation a challenge, but I only got lost once. The depths were in the 50 to 70 ft range. Water was warm and clear, nice for diving.
The dive sites off Mona Island were fantastic, equal to anything I have seen in the Caribbean (and I am well travelled). While there were some walls, it was nicer on top. The reefs were exceptionally lush. Like Desecheo, the depths were in the 50 to 70 foot range, if you stayed on the reef, and not the wall.
Monito Island was different. The part above the water looked like a smaller version of Darwin Island in the Galapagos, vertical cliffs coming out the water and a flat top. The part below the water was a vertical cliff going straight down to a hundred or so feet, and then a sand bottom. At one end of the island were some rather large reef structures, coming up within 40 ft of the surface. The wall had lots of stuff on it, but, it was so vertical it seemed two dimensional. The reef structures, on the other hand, were great.
Monito was where we did our 3rd live dive, the one with the current. Did I mention that Monito is a very small island. We entered at one end, I never kicked at all, and drifted to the other end in about 25 minutes. Would have been really interesting if there was no line to grab.
Once again, it was our pleasure to take a vacation with rec.scuba's very own Pat McDuffee and his lovely wife Charlotte.
At least five of the passengers brought laptops. The most popular activity was photo editing. One guy had some sort of dive profile program, and one lady appeared to be using a word processor application to log her dives.
During the intitial introductions, it was announced that E6 processing was available, and that everyone was invited to submit their best slides for the Thursday night photo competition. By the end of diving on Tuesday, not one roll of film was processed. There were however, at least 7 divers with digital cameras, so we decided to go digital for the photo competition, and use the desktop computer on the boat. Later it was announced that all entries had to be unaltered, which didn't bother me at all. I do my photo editing at home. But, all those guys with laptops were scrambling to find their original images.
One contestent, showing a bit of humour, had earlier done the Mona Island run ashore, and had some iguana photos. She had copied and iguana image next to a lizardfish, and entered that one in the competition. Uproarious laughter abounded, but the photo was disqualified. By the way, my entry was 3rd of 5.
Black durgeons are very shy fish, and hard to photograph. Also, whenever approaching a fish with a camera, there is always that decision of when to click. The closer you get, the better the picture. Also, the closer you get, the more likely it is that the fish will bugger off. So there was this durgeon floating just off the wall. I made one approach to about 4 ft away, took a picture, and backed off. Then I made an approach to about 3 ft away, took a picture and backed off. The fish was still there. Then I started another approach. Tap, tap, tap on my shoulder. I turned to see what my wife wanted. She signalled that I should try to get closer. I nodded ok, turned around, and there was the fish, gone. By the way, here is the fish.
Climbing the ladder was ok with or without fins, but coming up the stairs was definitely easier without. At first, I de-finned on the tag line. Then, after the first live dives where we had to come up with fins, I continued to do so. At first, I Charlie Chaplined up the stairs. By the end of the trip I was going up backwards. It was easiest that way.
When we went to Monita for our one live dive, the Captain obviously thought that the dive was too tough for some of the passengers, and gave a dive briefing designed to discourage those people from attempting it. It worked. Even though I enjoyed the dive, I am not entirely happy over what happened. As far as I am concerned, we all paid the same price, we should all have the same dive opportunities. The captain should have stuck to sites he was sure we all could do. It is not as if there was a shortage of easy, but still very nice dive sites out there.
The second last dive of the trip was off the coast of Peurto Rico. The viz was awful and once we found the reef, we were unimpressed. Too much sand and rock, not enough coral and sponge. It just seem worth staying down, so we surfaced after an 8 minute dive. This was also my first ever tropical dive where I didn't see a fish.
Liveaboard diving is fun. Even though not everything in this report is positive, it was a fun trip.
| Trip Dates2004-01-03 to 2004-01-10 | Trip Report Index |