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Dive Review of Nekton Diving Cruises in
Belize

Nekton Diving Cruises, Nov, 2003,

by Rickie Sterne/Chrisanda Button, Arkansas, USA . Report 857.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 3 stars Food 4 stars
Service and Attitude 4 stars Environmental Sensitivity N/A
Dive Operation 3 stars Shore Diving 3 stars
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ N/A
Beginners 4 stars
Advanced 4 stars
Comments This trip was our fourth with Nekton Dving and our second in Belize aboard the Pilot. Obviously, we like this operation. The boat is aging, but had been spiffed up since our last trip. Our upper deck cabin was comfortable, although folks on the lower deck reported rainforest atmosphere due to condensation in their ceilings. The cabins have queensized beds and real windows. The food was good and plentiful. Arminda, the Salvadoran cook, offered dishes in alternative white-boy-bland and Belizean-spicy forms. Her midmorning cookies, baked fresh daily, would put anyone's grandmother to shame. The boat does not serve soda pop, but has lots of fruit juices and uncarbonated drinks available. The sun deck is partially covered and spacious. The salon and dining areas are also roomy. The dive deck, however, is crowded. Most of the twenty-six divers onboard wanted to dive all five dives per day, so we were elbowing each other as we geared up. The crew on the Pilot this year is excellent, much better than the boat's crew in 2001. One night the seas rose during a night dive, and the divemasters did a great job of getting everyone out of the water quickly, calmly, and safely. The diving on the walls of Belizeis beautiful. The sponges, corals, and gorgonians are large, healthy, and colorful. One memorable morning, a pod of seven wild dolphins swam by and stopped to check out an equal number of divers. We also saw several turtles, eagle rays and southern stingrays, and goodly numbers of tropicals. There were green and spotted morays and one freeswimming goldspotted eel. We also saw a couple of uncommon nudibranchs. lots of shrimp, and Spanish and slipper lobsters. After a frustrating week of searching for them, we finally saw both the whitestriped and whitespotted toadfish on our last day of diving. We saw an octopus on every night dive, and were joined by a curious school of squid on one night. Nekton has started offering nitrox (good), but needs to streamline its process for analyzing the tanks so the nitrox divers don't have to be the last ones off the dive deck. For some reason, they have decided to provide a maximum concentration of 29%. The price tag for nitrox is $150 for the whole week. We took advantage of the free tour of Altun Ha the Nekton people offered to those of us with late flights on the Saturday we disembarked. We enjoyed the diving, the crew, the food, and the other divers we met on this trip. Really a fun week!

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience 251-500 dives
Where else diving Bahamas, Bay Islands, & Sea of Cortez by liveaboards, Cozumel, and local lakes
Closest Airport Getting There

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny Seas calm, surge, noCurrents
Water Temp 80-82°F / 27-28°C Wetsuit Thickness 3
Water Visibility 60-100 Ft/ 18-30 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile yes
Enforced diving restrictions 130 feet & return to boat with 500 psi (scarcely an imposition with the steel 95 tanks)
Liveaboard? yes Nitrox Available? N/A

What I Saw

Sharks None Mantas None
Dolphins Schools Whale Sharks None
Turtles > 2 Whales None
Corals 4 stars Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 3 stars Large Fish 3 stars
Large Pelagics 1 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter N/A Boat Facilities N/A
Overall rating for UWP's N/A Shore Facilities N/A
UW Photo Comments [None]
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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