Belize Aggressor III
In June, I enjoyed diving in Belize for a week on the Aggressor III. I was without my favorite dive buddy (my wife), so I had a cabin to myself. I went to attend an on-board photo workshop, because I had new u/w camera equipment, and I wanted to learn how to take better photos.
As to the boat, I'd say that in some respects this boat and crew exceeded the traditional Aggressor standards and in some other ways lagged behind a bit. The food was varied and flavorful, almost always nicely well-spiced. The tasty meals, served buffet style for breakfast and lunch, made it hard to not eat too much! And, surprisingly there was complementary Aggressor-labelled wine and local beer, both of which were actually quite good. The cabins were, well, "adequate". I think the boat is in need of a tune-up or redecorating. It may be a small complaint, but the towels (both in the cabin and on-deck) were pretty thin, and should be replaced with newer more fluffy ones. There was plenty of hot water, so no complaints there. The dining area, in the bow of the boat, was comfortable enough, but at times was a bit claustrophobic.
The dive deck and dive operations were excellent. The crew were friendly, knowledgable and helpful with any equipment issues anyone had. They also always had towels ready to use when we returned from the dive. Easy on / easy off, no limits, no babying of the divers, and all diving was from the back of the boat. We put on our gear at our stations, and walk to the dive deck with our tanks and weights on, down a few steps. But after that it was easy. Perhaps they should have had a more explicit system for tracking who was on or off the boat, and getting our depths and times, but maybe they were doing so silently.
The diving was far better than I had remembered for Belize from a trip 20 years ago. Lots of animals, in number and variety, and some new creatures I had never seen before. We saw an excellent range of creatures, including sharks and a wide variety of reef fish, along with morays, eagle rays, turtles, etc., plus a tremendous range of nudibranchs, crabs, squid, octopus, etc. I really enjoyed the night dives too. The reef was in excellent shape, and the water was generally very calm with little or no current. The visibility was good though not often excellent. (The crossing to and from Lighthouse Reef was a bit rough, however.) The entire week was the perfect opportunity to work with my new camera gear, for both macro and wide angle shots.
The photo workshop with Mike Mesgleski of the Jim Church School of UW Photography was just what I needed. Mike is very talented and helpful (and often very funny). I had forgotten my battery charger (doh!) and he jerry-rigged something that saved my trip. His instruction both above and below the water were really excellent, and greatly helped me improve my uw photography. For once I had several pictures I wanted to show people!
One of the nice things about a photo workshop is that almost all of us were there to take photos, not to see how far we could go underwater. Often, on other trips, my experience is that the dive guides/masters will take a group on an underwater race course to see how much of the reef you could visit. Not this time. We could spend as long as we wanted right under the boat, if that was sufficiently interesting. As I said at the time, I flew a lot of miles to get to Belize ... it didn't make sense to go any further underwater than I needed to go to find something worth photographing. It really was a wonderful way to see the reef, spending time with the animals I wanted to see, and taking photographs, rather than swimming along and occasionally taking a snapshot.
A word about my camera equipment (though it's not actually a review of the trip). After a lot of research, I acquired an Olympus OMD-EM1, the latest "micro-four-thirds" mirrorless camera. It's a lot smaller than the traditional SLRs, but a lot more capable than the compact camera I had before. It has no shutter lag (this is a BIG deal under water), very fast focusing and lots of other great features that are useful above land. I was very glad to have the new Nauticam housing for the OMD-EM1. It's easy to use, and performed perfectly. Mark Strickland and Kelli Dickinson of Bluewater Photo were very helpful in getting me the housing and related accessories in a timely way. They patiently answered all my numerous questions, and gave me excellent advice. I still have a lot to learn (and I hope many opportunities to do so!), but at least now I know I won't be lacking the proper equipment (or any excuse) as a reason I didn't take excellent uw pictures.
By the way, don't expect much from the local Belize restaurants or the airport. We went to one restaurant for our final dinner, and while the food was "okay" (not as good as the boat, actually), the service was incredibly slow! And the airport ... well, remember Belize IS a third-world country. No lounge, no real restaurants, and no air conditioning. It was a LONG wait to check in and go through security. Ah well, such is the life of a traveling scuba diver!
All in all, this was a trip I'd recommend.
